No hearing in Loya case on Monday

Two PILs seeking an independent probe into the  death of special CBI judge B H Loya  will not be taken up by the Supreme Court on Monday.

Of the two-judge bench presided over by Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar, the latter is on leave.

According to the apex court's cause list, court number 10 -   that briefly heard the matter on Friday - would not assemble on January 15.

The matter is now likely to be posted for consideration on Tuesday.

The allocation of the case, involving the Mumbai judge on December 1, 2014, to a Justice Mishra-led bench was cited as one of the reasons by the four senior-most judges to express in public their dissent with the CJI.

A bench of Justices Mishra and Shantanagoudar had on January 12 asked the Maharashtra government to bring up all records pertaining to the matter.

Judge Loya was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case in which BJP president Amit Shah and senior police officers were accused. All of them were subsequently discharged.

Notably, one of the petitioners, Congress party sympathsier Tehseen Poonawalla, on Saturday accused senior advocate Dushyant Dave of asking him to withdraw his plea on the ground that the bench would not deal with the case favourably.

He said Dave himself had earlier volunteered to argue the matter but subsequently tried to convince him against pursuing it. The matter was argued by advocate Varinder Kumar Sharma.

On the last date of hearing, Dave, along with senior advocate Indira Jaising, had submitted before the court since a similar plea demanding an  independent probe into the  death of judge Loya was pending before the Bombay High Court, the apex court should not hear it.

The court, however, had rejected their plea.

Another PIL was filed by a Maharashtra-based journalist Banduraj Sambhaji Lone in the apex court.