Death of Judge Loya: Government documents placed before Supreme Court raise more questions, deepen the mystery

26 January 2018
Narendra Bisht/ The India Today Group/ Getty Images
Narendra Bisht/ The India Today Group/ Getty Images

Documents submitted to the Supreme Court by the state of Maharashtra as part of hearings regarding the death of the judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya contradict each other on multiple counts. The papers have been submitted alongside a report prepared for the additional chief secretary of the home ministry of Maharashtra by Sanjay Barve, the commissioner of Maharashtra’s State Intelligence Department, or SID. Copies of the documents were handed over to petitioners asking for an investigation into Loya’s mysterious death in Nagpur in 2014. The papers raise further questions about the circumstances of the case, and fail to resolve any of the troubling discrepancies already exposed in the matter by The Caravan. They also suggest a concerted bid to manipulate records to create a narrative that Loya died of a natural heart attack.

STATEMENT ASSERTS THAT ECG MACHINE AT DANDE HOSPITAL WAS NOT WORKING

The submitted documents include statements from four judges—Shrikant Kulkarni, SM Modak, VC Barde and Roopesh Rathi—who claim to have been with Loya in his last hours. None of these judges had previously spoken or submitted statements on the case. A handwritten statement given to the SID by Rathi, who says he was working in Nagpur in 2014, states that the ECG machine at Dande Hospital was not working when Loya was taken there on the night he died.

Atul Dev is a former staff writer at The Caravan.

Keywords: Maharashtra death Supreme Court of India BH Loya Bombay High Court PIL Loya
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