IMPORTANT POINTS
State and its officers must necessarily take full responsibility for all material that has been placed on record. They must also face any legal consequence arising from such documentary material produced in the proceedings before the court.
Inquest report does not constitute substantive evidence.
A party to a proceeding, particularly a proceeding under Article 32, cannot demand as of right the production of a person, who has filed an affidavit, for cross-examination.
Counsel for intervener organization personally collecting evidence to somehow bolster his case, bordering on an attempt to misrepresent the facts and mislead the court.
An attempt to casting wholly unfounded aspersions on the judges constitutes a serious attempt to scandalise the court and obstruct the course of justice.
PIL developed as a powerful tool to espouse the cause of the marginalised and oppressed is being brazenly mis-utilised.

Headnote:(a) Administration of justice – Materials placed on record before the Court – State and its officers must necessarily take full responsibility for all material that has been placed on record – They must also face any legal consequence arising from such documentary material produced in the proceedings before the court. (Para 26)
       (b) Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – Section 174 – Inquest – Report does not constitute substantive evidence – Primarily intended to ascertain the nature of the injuries and the apparent cause of death – The post-mortem report, on the other hand, is expected to contain the details of the injuries through a scientific examination. (Para 29)
       (2014) 12 SCC 419; (2006) 2 SCC 450; (1997) 10 SCC 605; (2003) 2 SCC 518; AIR 2000 SC 2207; (1975) 4 SCC 122; (1975) 4 SCC 153; (1991) 3 SCC 627; (2016) 9 SCC 1; (2017) 11 SCC 195 – Relied upon
       (c) Administration of justice – Allegations against Chief justice of Bombay High Court – family members disassociating from statements attributed to them in news article – Video recordings containing snippets of an interview, not the full interview – Allegations held hearsay. (Para 60)
       (d) Supreme Court Rules 2013 – Order IX Rules 1 and 2 – A party to a proceeding – particularly a proceeding under Article 32 – Cannot demand as of right the production of a person, who has filed an affidavit, for cross-examination. (Para 63)
       (1959) Supp (2) SCR 316; (1964) 6 SCR 331; (1997) 3 SCC 216 – Distinguished
       (e) Constitution of India – Article 32 – PIL – Intervention – Counsel for intervener organization personally collecting evidence to somehow bolster his case – Bordering on an attempt to misrepresent the facts and mislead the court. (Para 68)
       (f) Administration of justice – Judicial propriety – Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court quashing criminal case against Chief Minister of Maharashtra considering facts of the case and law enunciated in (2014) 6 SCC 466 – Counsel for petitioners attempting to insinuate that one individual is controlling the entire judiciary in Maharashtra and elsewhere – Extraneous materials being sought to be relied upon to somehow sensationalise the case – An attempt to casting wholly unfounded aspersions on the judges of Bombay High Court – Constitutes a serious attempt to scandalise the court and obstruct the course of justice. (Para 69, 70)
       (2014) 6 SCC 466 – Referred
       (g) Constitution of India – Article 32 and 226 – Public Interest Litigation (PIL) – Developed as a powerful tool to espouse the cause of the marginalised and oppressed – Essential aspect – Person moving the court having no personal interest in the outcome of the proceedings – Objectivity – PIL a valuable instrument and jurisdictional tool to promote structural due process – Being brazenly mis-utilised – Motives varying from desire to seek publicity to settling scores of political or business rivalry. (Para 71, 72)
       (1984) 3 SCC 161; (2010) 3 SCC 402 – Relied upon
       Facts of the case:
       In the batch of petitions the petitioners seek an inquiry into the circumstances of the death of Brijgopal Harikishan Loya. He was a judicial officer in the State of Maharashtra in the rank of a district judge and died on 1 December 2014.
       Finding of the Court:
       The documentary material on the record indicates that the death of Judge Loya was due to natural causes. There is no ground for the court to hold that there was a reasonable suspicion about the cause or circumstances of death which would merit a further inquiry.
       Result: Petition dismissed.

JUDGMENT

Dr. D.Y. CHANDRACHUD, J.

A The Context

1. In the batch of petitions before this Court, the petitioners seek an inquiry into the circumstances of the death of Brijgopal Harikishan Loya. He was a judicial officer in the State of Maharashtra in the rank of a district judge and died on 1 December 2014. Articles on his death were published in the issues of Caravan magazine dated 20 and 21 November 2017. The first article was titled

“A family breaks its silence : shocking details emerge in death of judge presiding over Sohrabuddin trial”.

2. Since the petitions are founded on the two articles published in Caravan, it would be necessary to extract them in this judgment:

(i) Caravan article dated 20 November 2017:

“On the morning of 1 December 2014, the family of 48-year-old judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, who was presiding over the Central Bureau of Investigation special court in Mumbai, was informed that he had died in Nagpur, where he had travelled for a colleague’s daughter’s wedding. Loya had been hearing one of the most high-profile cases in the country, involving the allegedly staged encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005. The prime accused in the case was Amit Shah—Gujarat’s minister of state for home at the time of Sohrabuddin’s killing, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national president at the time of Loya’s death. The media reported that the judge had died of a heart attack.
Loya’s family did not speak to the media after his death. But in November 2016, Loya’s niece, Nupur Balaprasad Biyani, approached me while I was visiting Pune to say she had concerns about the circumstances surrounding her uncle’s death. Following this, over several meetings between November 2016 and November 2017, I spoke to her mother, Anuradha Biyani, who is Loya’s sister and a medical doctor in government service; another of Loya’s sisters, Sarita Mandhane; and Loya’s father, Harkishan. I also tracked down and spoke to government servants in Nagpur who witnessed the procedures followed with regard to the judge’s body after his death, including the post-mortem.
From these accounts, deeply disturbing questions emerged about Loya’s death: questions about inconsistencies in the reported account of the death; about the procedures followed after his death; and about the condition of the judge’s body when it was handed over to the family. Though the family asked for an inquiry commission to probe Loya’s death, none was ever set up.
At 11 pm on 30 November 2014, from Nagpur, Loya phoned his wife, Sharmila, using his mobile phone. Over around 40 minutes, he described to her his busy schedule through the day. Loya was in Nagpur to attend the wedding of the daughter of a fellow judge, Sapna Joshi. Initially he had not intended to go, but two of his fellow judges had insisted that he accompany them. Loya told his wife that he had attended the wedding, and later attended a reception. He also enquired about his son, Anuj. He said that he was staying at Ravi Bhavan, a government guest house for VIPs in Nagpur’s Civil Lines locality, along with the judges he had accompanied to Nagpur.
It was the last call that Loya is known to have made, and the last conversation that he is known to have had. His family received the news of his death early the next morning.
“His wife in Mumbai, myself in Latur city and my daughters in Dhule, Jalgaon and Aurangabad received calls,” early on the morning of 1 December 2014, Harkishan Loya, the judge’s father, told me when we first met, in November 2016, in his native village of Gategaon, near Latur city. They were informed “that Brij passed away in the night, that his post-mortem was over and his body had been sent to our ancestral home in Gategaon, in Latur district,” he added. “I felt like an earthquake had shattered my life.”
The family was told that Loya had died of a cardiac arrest. “We were told that he had chest pain, and so was taken to Dande Hospital, a private hospital in Nagpur, by auto rickshaw, where some

Click Here to Read the rest of this document

2018 Supreme(SC) 362

Cases Referred (25)

Related Judgments

Plastikos Packaging VS Commissioner of Central Excise, Allahabad

SYSTEMS MANUFACTURING LTD VS SYSTEMS EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION - 2000 Supreme(Kar) 665

JOGENDRA SINGH VS SURESH MANJULAPUR - 2000 Supreme(Kar) 662

MYSORE WINE PRODUCTS AND ALLIED CO. LTD. , BANGALORE VS PRESIDING OFFICER, INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL, BANGALORE - 2000 Supreme(Kar) 663

Bose VS State, rep. by Inspector of Police, Salaikiramam P. S. , - 2000 Supreme(Mad) 1273

Jain Construction Company VS State of Rajasthan - 2000 Supreme(Raj) 912

Voltas Limited VS Joint Collector, Medak - 2000 Supreme(AP) 945

STATE OF BIHAR VS SURENDRA SINGH RAUTELA ALIAS BENGALI - 2000 Supreme(Jhk) 45

Krishna Kumar VS Gulab Khan - 2000 Supreme(Raj) 1546

KARSANBHAI DAHYABHAI PARMAR VS DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE - 2000 Supreme(Guj) 1009