Justice Loya's death: Interference in post-mortem involving BJP minister's relative

New Delhi: Reports have emerged that there was some interference in the post-mortem report of former Supreme Court judge BH Loya.

Caravan Magazine has published a detailed story dated 2 April 2018 under the caption "Death of Judge Loya: Post-mortem examination was manipulated under directions of doctor related to Maharashtra cabinet minister" claiming that as per instructions of BJP leader and Maharashtra minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, the post-mortem was conducted under the leadership of his brother-in-law Dr Makarand Vyawahare.

However, as per official records Dr NK Tumram was the one who performed the post-mortem, but the magazine in its report reveals that actually it was a team led by DR Makarand Vyawahare that did it. The Caravan report was prepared after atwo month-long into the circumstances surrounding the post-mortem examination of the judge BH Loya at the department of forensic medicine at Nagpur’s Government Medical College.

Dr Vyawahare was a professor in the Govt Medical College in Nagpur. And thanks to his political connections he used to exercise more powers than that in places where he worked. The magazine alleges that in the matter of Justice Loya, he had shown special interest, and cites facts such as that Dr Makarand Vyawahare personally participated in and directed the judge BH Loya's post-mortem examination. He successfully hid crucial details such as a wound on the back of Loya's head.

It was after an investigation report in Caravan Magazine about the suspicious circumstances around Justice Loya's death that the matter attracted national interest and became a subject of petitions in the Supreme Court where it also became one of the issues raised by senior judges in regard to allocation of cases under the court's roster.