Congress demands SIT probe in Judge Loya's death

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday demanded an independent probe by a SIT in the death of Judge Loya, who was presiding over the case of Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter at the time of his death. The party fielded its senior lawyers Mr. Kapil Sibal, Mr Salman Khurshid, Mr Vivek Tankha and Mr Randeep Singh Surjewala to address a press conference over the issue.

Speaking to reporters Mr Sibal citing the refernce of Judge Loya’s sister of an offer of bribe of Rs 100 crores said, “We want  independent investigators to probe the death of Judge Loya and the events that followed up. When Rs 100 crores was offered as bribe to Judge Loya matter, why was no FIR filed by the judiciary? Why was no probe carried out? Who was being protected?”

The events as spelled out by the Congress indicated that Judge Loya was under tremendous pressure to decide a case in a particular fashion. Apart from his family members Judge Loya had confided this to three other persons a retired District Judge Prakash Thombre, advocate Shrikant Khandalkar and advocate Satish Uke. Soon after Mr Khandalkar and Mr Thombre started receiving threat calls.  Khandalkar’ s body was found in District Court premises of Nagpur allegedly fell from 8th storey on 29th November 2015 (28th November 2015 was closed for Court work on account of 4th Saturday), he was missing for two days. Judge Thombre also died suspiciously while traveling in train from Nagpur to Bengaluru on May 16th 2016 in Hyderabad.

Senior leaders of the Congress alleged that there were serious discrepancies in the post mortem report of Judge Loya. Also alleging that the register entries of Ravi Bhawan where Judge Loya was staying Nagpur have been tampered with. Mr. Sibal further added that the Congress will go to every corner of the country if the enquiry is not initiated immediately. A PIL is currently being heard by the Supreme Court on the issue of the death of judge Loya.