Who is Judge BH Loya? All you need to know about this case

The Supreme Court on Thursday, 19 April, dismissed PILs seeking an independent probe into the death of special CBI judge BH Loya. The SC judgment slammed the petitioners for "maligning" the judiciary.

Judge Loya, who was hearing the sensitive Sohrabuddin Sheikh "fake encounter" case, had allegedly died of a cardiac arrest in Nagpur on December 1, 2014, when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague's daughter.

Three years ago, it was a wedding of the daughter of a fellow judge that brought sessions judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya from Mumbai to Nagpur on November 30, 2014. By all accounts, he stayed at Ravi Bhawan. On the morning of December 1, his family was told he had died of a heart attack.

According to police records, Loya died at 6.15 in the morning. He developed chest pain around 4 am and he was taken to two hospitals, but he could not be saved. The postmortem report records the cause of his death as "coronary artery insufficiency".

About the case:

A batch of pleas was filed in the Supreme Court seeking an independent probe into Special CBI Judge BH Loya's alleged mysterious death in 2014.

The Maharashtra government had earlier argued in the top court that all pleas seeking an independent probe into Judge Loya's death were motivated and aimed at targeting 'one individual' in the guise of upholding the rule of law.

It had come down heavily on the accusations, bullying and browbeating of judges in the apex court by some activist lawyers in the Loya case, and said that the judiciary and judicial officers need to be saved from such averments.

Judge Loya's death came under the spotlight in November 2017 after media reports quoting his sister had fuelled suspicion about the circumstances surrounding his death and its link to the Sohrabuddin case. But Loya's son had on 14 January 2018 said that his father had died of natural causes.

BJP chief Amit Shah was an accused in the case but has been discharged.

(With agency inputs)