Loya died of coronary artery insufficiency, say police citing post-mortem report

Special CBI Judge B H Loya died of "coronary artery insufficiency", a senior police officer said today, citing the report of the post-mortem examination conducted on him at a Nagpur hospital nearly three years ago.

The investigation into the death case registered under Section 174 of the CrPC at Sadar police station, was closed after the post-mortem report received from the Department of Forensic of Medicine of Government Medical College and Hospital, which conducted the autopsy, the officer, who did not wish to be named, said.

"There was nothing suspicious in the histopathology report of Justice Loya," the officer said.

"As no poisonous element was found in his body as per the histopathology report and doctors confirmed the cause of death as coronary artery insufficiency, the Investigation Officer (IO) had closed the probe," he said.

According to the officer, the judges, who accompanied Justice Loya during the Napgur tour, had alerted the deceased's relative Rukmesh Pannalal Jakhotia, a resident of Aurangabad, that Loya had suffered a heart attack early on December 1, 2014.

"Jakhotia asked Dr Prashant Rathi, a resident of Ravi Nagar, Napgur, to visit the hospital after which Dr Rathi arrived at Meditrina Hospital at around 6am. Dr Rathi had accepted Justice Loya's body. Statements of Dr Rathi and doctors were recorded by the police during the investigation," the officer said.

Loya's body was sent to his village Gategaon in Latur district in an ambulance (MH-40/Y-8262) and a constable from Traffic Control Branch, Prashant Thawre (batch no. 554) and two judges followed the ambulance in their car, the officer said, showing documents available with him.

Three days back, Anuj Loya, the son of Justice Loya, who was hearing the sensitive Sohrabuddin Sheikh "fake encounter" case, had said that his family was convinced that his father died of natural causes.

"My father died of natural causes, our family is convinced it was a natural death...I have made myself clear that we do not have a suspicion...It was a natural death," Anuj had told PTI on Sunday.

Talking to reporters later, Anuj had said although he and his family earlier had suspicions about his father's death, they no longer harboured such doubts.

Justice Loya had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague's daughter when he died in Nagpur in December 2014.

BJP chief Amit Shah was an accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case and was subsequently discharged.

Anuj's press conference had come two days after four senior-most judges mounted a virtual revolt against the country's chief justice, raising questions on "selective" case allocation and certain judicial orders.

One of the four senior-most judges, who held the unprecedented press conference last Friday, had said the matter involving judge Loya's death was one of the issues underpinning their differences with Chief Justice Dipak Misra. PTI COR NP ABH