CJI 2

In my blog of 23rd Apr 2018, I had written about the impeachment motion against Chief Justice of India (CJI), brought by Congress led opposition parties in Rajya Sabha. This motion was not accepted by Rajya Sabha Chairman Vice President  Venkiah Naidu by giving the valid reasons, Congress had commented at that time that they will explore the possibility of appealing against this decision in Supreme Court(SC).

Yesterday evening, 2 Congress  Rajya Sabha MPs Pratap Singh Bajwa from Punjab and Amee Harshadray Yajnik through their Advocate Kapil Sibal appealed in SC for urgent listing of this matter, before a bench headed by  Justice J Chelameswar, the senior most justice after CJI. While Justice Chelameswar initially asked him to mention the matter before CJI, the bench which also comprised of Justice SK Kaul asked Sibal and other advocate Prashant Bhushan to come back tomorrow. But to the surprise of Kapil Sibal and  Bhushan, by late Monday evening they found the matter has been listed for hearing before five Judge Constitution bench headed by Justice Sikri.

Today morning when the matter came for hearing Kapil Sibal raised the objection why the matter has come before the Constitution bench, and wanted to know who passed the order that the matter would be heard by the Constitution Bench. Kapil Sibal was thinking  that the matter will be heard by Justice Chelameswar, who is anti CJI and has a soft corner for Congress, that was one of the reason he submitted his petition  to the bench headed by Chelameswar. Kapil Sibal  also said that as  CJI is himself involved in this matter so he can not pass the administrative order that the matter should be heard by Constitution bench, Sibal also asked the copy of the order, so that they can challenge the same.

In the court , the Attorney General commented that only 2 of the over 50 members of Rajya Sabha who had earlier moved for the motion, have approached the SC. He further pointed that from the Congress’s only 2 MPs have approached the SC, but there were six other opposition parties  which had moved a notice of impeachment in Rajya Sabha, but they have not moved the court. It means that all others have not supported the stand taken by the Congress party to challenge the rejection of impeachment notice by Venkiah Naidu. Even in the case of Congress, two Congress MPs have not been authorised by other Congress MPs who have signed the impeachment motion.

Kapil Sibal was repeatedly asked by the bench,whether any purpose would be served if the 2 MPs were given the copy of the administrative order passed by CJI for setting up of the 5 judge bench. Kapil Sibal  said  only after getting the copy of the order, they will decide whether or not to challenge it. Actually he had no other arguments to present and what ever he said about  the rejection of impeachment notice failed to get any acceptance from the bench. So Kapil had no choice left but to withdraw the petition, so the bench said  the petition stands dismissed.

So this ploy of Congress also failed. I do not understand why Congress Party is after CJI when he is about to retire. The main worry for the Congress Party is that CJI is heading the 2 most important benches which are hearing the triple talaq and Babri Masjid case, the verdict of which they want to delay,  and they tried their level best through Kapil Sibal  to defer the hearing of the case of Babri Masjid after next general elections. They are worried that if the verdict comes in these cases before CJI retire, it may affect their vote banks. Presently all the indications show that verdict may not be as per Congress party’s wishes.

One thing which congress has failed to understand is that, no Judge of SC will risk his career by going against fellow Judge of SC, first thing  there is always a camaraderie among  Judges of same court and secondly every Judge thinks if I go against some other judge tomorrow any other judge can go against me. The 4 SC Judges who held a press conference against CJI , now are the isolated group in SC and they are getting the  cases, which are not political in nature . The reason being they directly and indirectly hinted that they are not happy with present regime. But general public has understood why they are unhappy, it is because these 4 judges are politically inclined and they are not part of any bench which is hearing politically sensitive cases.

I hope better sense prevails in Congress Party and they stop this matter here only. Congress leadership should understand that they can not fight proxy war with NDA govt, if they have to fight with NDA govt then they have to come up with better ideas other than that are castiest, non secular, anti Muslims etc.

What you say my friends.

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