Chief Justice Misra-Led New Supreme Court Bench To Hear Judge Loya Case

The Supreme Court has changed the bench that will hear a public interest litigation seeking an independent probe into the death of CBI Special Court Judge BH Loya.

On Monday, it will be heard by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Misra, and also comprising Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice AM Khanwilkar, according to the top court's cause list.

The matter was first heard by a bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Mohan Shantanagoudar. That was the day four senior judges of the Supreme Court called an unprecedented press conference to publicly air their differences with the Chief Justice over what they called selectively assigning cases of national importance to the benches. When a reporter present at the press conference asked that if their protest was also related to the death of Judge Loya, Justice Gogoi said ‘Yes', wire agency ANI had reported.

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Judge Loya was hearing a matter involving the death of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a police encounter when Amit Shah—now the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—was the minister of state for home in Gujarat. Shah was exonerated by the judge who replaced Loya.

In the last hearing, the bench headed by Justice Mishra had asked all the documents related to the case be handed over to the petitioners. It had also included a line saying that the matter should be listed in front of the “appropriate bench”.

After this, the Chief Justice-led bench on Friday passed an order saying it should be listed as per the roster.

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