CJI

Friends, you all must have heard about the Congress and few other opposition parties serving an impeachment notice against Chief Justice  of India (CJI), to the Rajya Sabha Chairman, Vice President Venkiah Naidu. This notice was signed by 64 Rajya Sabha MPs (min required is 50). Many of the opposition parties like TMC, BJD, AIADMK did not support this move of Congress. Now let us look for the reasons given in this notice for impeachment against CJI Dipak Misra :

1.  The circumstances relating to Prasad Educational Trust case show prima facie evidence against  Dipak Misra, that he may have been involved in the conspiracy of paying illegal gratification.
2. That Dipak Misra dealt, on the administrative as well as judicial side, with a writ petition which sought investigation into a matter, in which he was likely to fall under scope of investigation. He presided over every bench and passed orders in the case of Prasad Educational trust.
3. Dipak Misra acquired land when he was an advocate, by giving an affidavit that was found to be false and despite order of  Additional District Magistrate cancelling the land allotment in 1985, surrendered the said land in 2012, after he was elevated to SC.
4. CJI appears to have antedated an administrative order dated 6 Nov 2017, which amounts to serious act of forgery.
5. CJI has abused his administrative authority as master of roster to  arbitrarily assign individual cases of particular advocates in politically sensitive cases to select judges in order to achieve predetermined outcome.

Now let us examine these 5 reasons, which on the face of it not looking that serious which requires impeachment notice. Now if you go deep into these- in the first case of Prasad Education – the case is not a new one, why did the Congress did not take any action against Dipak Misra when they were in power. The case of  giving false affidavit happened in 1985, why congress was keeping quiet for so many years and then why was he promoted as Judge, then High Court Judge and finally he was elevated to SC in 2012, even then Congress was in power at centre, why they did not take action at that time. The antedated order of 6th Nov 2017, no one knows the exact fact.And finally in SC all the judges are equal and CJI is first among equals. To say that a political sensitive case should not be allotted to certain SC judges, is casting a shadow on their integrity and credibility.

The actual fact is that, the Congress has a grouse against CJI because  the recent judgement for all the political sensitive cases which were delivered by SC, the bench in all the cases were headed by CJI, and all these judgement were not to the liking of Congress leadership, and in some cases the bench headed by CJI did not like the arguments put by Congressmen, who were acting as advocate in particular cases. The classic example is when Congress leader and advocate Kapil Sibal asked the SC to defer the hearing in Ram Mandir case after 2019 General elections, which the bench refused and said the SC bench can not be dictated by whims and fancy  of a political parties of the country.

Now today Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkiah Naidu rejected the Congress led opposition parties notice of impeachment against CJI Dipak Misra.. While rejecting the notice he said ” having considered the material contained in the notice  of motion and reflected upon the inputs received in my interaction with legal luminaries and constitutional experts, I am of the opinion that the notice of the motion does not deserve to be admitted. Accordingly I refuse to admit it. I have applied my mind to all five charges made out in impeachment motion and examined all documents attached, all facts as stated in motion don’t make out case which can lead to any reasonable mind to conclude that CJI on these facts can be ever held guilty of misbehaviour.” He further added that as per the law, after giving impeachment motion no party can disclose its contents to  media, which was done by Congress Party.

Now there are conflicting views being expressed by legal experts- some legal experts ( who have leaning towards Congress)  are saying that  the Rajya Sabha Chairman should have admitted the motion and then as per procedure he should have constituted the  three SC judge committee to look into the matter. Soli Sorabjee who is former Attorney General , had made a caustic remark on the opposition’s decision to proceed with impeachment motion against CJI, saying that ” This is the worst that could happen to the independence of judiciary”. Eminent jurist Fali S Nariman  said that the issues raised in the impeachment motion against CJI were not of sufficient gravity and rightly rejected by VP. He further added that VP is the statutory authority and he has rightly rejected the notice. This move by Congress led opposition  is only to demean the institution of SC and it is not about Dipak Misra. It is this institution which has been denigrated by the action of opposition parties.

As per the latest happenings in the capital, Congress spoke person says that they will be exploring the next course of legal action. What can be next course- filing a appeal against order of Vice President for not admitting impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra. Are they in the SC going to ask that the bench should be constituted to their liking, and so  and so judges should be their in the bench. As per my opinion no SC judge will like that move.

So let us wait and watch.

Waiting for your views/comments/feed backs.