Congress welcomes CJI's decision to hear Justice Loya case

Congress on Saturday welcomed Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra's decision to hear the case about the death of CBI judge Justice B.H. Loya.

The bench led by Justice Misra will hear the pleas seeking an investigation into the allegedly suspicious death of the CBI judge on January 22.

Speaking to ANI, All India Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev said, "If this decision has been taken then we welcome it. There are a lot of controversies associated with it."

The development comes days after the four senior-most SC judges in a presser alleged that the CJI, who is the master of the roster, was arbitrarily assigning important cases to select benches headed by junior judges.

The case was earlier assigned to Justice Arun Mishra, the 10th most-senior judge of the Supreme Court.

Justice Loya, who had been hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh Encounter case, wherein BJP chief Amit Shah was a prime accused, died in alleged suspicious circumstances in 2014.

The Supreme Court on January 5 sought the CBI Judge B.H. Loya's postmortem report from Maharashtra government asserting that the "matter is very serious".