Justice J Chelameswar and three other senior Supreme Court judges had held a press conference on Friday
New Delhi: Documents linked to the death of judge BH Loya, including the post-mortem report, were submitted today to the Supreme Court, which is hearing requests for an investigation into the judge's death after his family raised questions in November. The case was one of the main triggers for public criticism of the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, by the four judges who rank after him. The judges had voiced concern that the case had been assigned to a judge whose objectivity had been doubted by a lawyer. The unprecedented conflict between the top judges remains unresolved, admitted Attorney General KK Venugopal, who had claimed yesterday that "everything has been settled".
Here's your 10-point cheatsheet to this big story:
- The four judges -- Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurien Joseph -- went public after the Judge Loya case was assigned to Justice Arun Mishra, who is number 10 in the Supreme Court hierarchy.
- On Friday, they called a press conference and criticised the way sensitive cases were being assigned "without rationale".
- Judge Loya died of a cardiac arrest on December 1, 2014, while attending a wedding in Nagpur. At the time, he was handling the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in which BJP president Amit Shah was an accused. Mr Shah was discharged by the judge who replaced judge Loya.
- The Supreme Court asked Maharashtra to share documents related to the case with the petitioners who have called for an investigation into the death after judge Loya's family was quoted by the newsmagazine Caravan as questioning the way he died, and the state of his body.
- Last weekend, judge Loya's son Anuj, however, denied that there was anything suspicious in the death and said it was being politicised.
- Justice Arun Mishra reportedly "broke down" at an informal meeting of judges yesterday at the Supreme Court lounge, complaining that he had been unfairly targeted and his competence was being questioned.
- Justice Mishra was comforted by both the Chief Justice and Justice Chelameswar. Justice Chelameswar "was seen with his arm around Justice Mishra as he was led by the Chief Justice to his chamber," reported news agency IANS.
- At that informal tea and chat -- a tradition at the Supreme Court before the day starts -- the Chief Justice had spoken to the four judges and resolved the dispute, Attorney General Venugopal told reporters yesterday.
- This morning, Mr Venugopal referred to a report in The Hindu newspaper and told NDTV: "I accept that the judges' conflict is not settled."
- The Hindu quotes sources close to the four judges as denying any reconciliation and saying that there had been "no attempts so far to resolve the issues raised by the judges". The four judges have been kept out of a constitution bench announced yesterday to decide on eight important cases.
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