Senior advocates in SC slug it out over ''pressure'' in Loya case

New Delhi, February 19

Senior advocates for petitioners who want independent investigation into Special Central Bureau of Investigation Judge BH Loya’s death have said that they have been facing pressure to have themselves removed from the case.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who is appearing in the case for Bombay Lawyers’ Association—the writ petitioner which has filed the plea originally before the Bombay High Court—told three-judge Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud on Monday that the Bar Council of India had recently issued a notice against him.

Senior advocate Pallav Sisodia, who is appearing for Mumbai-based journalist BS Lone—who also argues for an independent investigation into the death—has on the other hand accused Dave of “pressuring him” into removing himself from the case by writing an article in a media publication.

At the very end of the hearing, Sisodia told the Bench: "Mr. Dave is talking about pressure but he himself has written an article in the media to mount pressure on me to recuse from the matter".

To this, Dave said: "I stand by my article. You (Sisodia) have earlier appeared for BJP president Amit Shah and are now arguing this case seeking probe into the death of a judicial officer".

In a column written on January 18, 2018, Dave pointed out that senior advocate Sisodia had represented BJP president Amit Shah—then prime suspect in a staged encounter killing case that Loya was assigned to—and some other accused in the case in courts, and also imputed that there appeared to be a “massive cover up operation underway”.

Loya was still hearing the 2005 staged encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and his associate Tulsi Prajapati when he died of what was then attributed to cardiac arrest in December 2014. PTI/Agencies