Conduct of 4 judges who took Loya to hospital can't be questioned: SC

The four judicial officers, who accompanied special CBI judge B H Loya to the hospital after he complained of chest pain in early hours on December 1, 2014, acted in "good faith" to ensure medical treatment to their colleague and their conduct cannot be questioned, the Supreme Court said today.

Any attempt on the part of the petitioners and the intervenors to malign judicial officers of the district judiciary must be "emphatically" rejected, it said.

The top court took umbrage against senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who had argued for some of the petitioners and had sought to cross-examine the four judges who had accompanied Loya to the hospital.

It said the conduct of the judges --Shrikant Kulkarni and S M Modak, V C Barde and Roopesh Rathi -- cannot be questioned and there was no reason for this court to doubt the veracity of their statements.

"The petitioners cannot assert as a matter of right that they should be allowed to cross-examine a host of persons including the doctors and judicial officers. By casting unfounded aspersions on the judicial officers who had accompanied judge Loya, the petitioners have revealed the real motive of these proceedings, which is to bring the judiciary into disrepute on the basis of scurrilous allegations.

"We find no basis or justification to allow the request for cross-examination. The application shall accordingly stand rejected," a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud. said.

It said the decision of the judges to take Loya to the Dande hospital, which was close to Ravi Bhavan where they were staying, was taken in "good faith" and to attribute motives to his colleagues who were with him and took immediate steps to shift him to a nearby hospital "is absurd, if not motivated."