Cong, 6 parties make first move ever for CJI removal Jaitley hits out at notice, says it’s ‘revenge’ action
UNPRECEDENTED Parties accuse top judge of ‘misbehaviour’, ‘misusing authority’
NEWDELHI: The Congress and six other opposition parties on Friday submitted notice of a motion for the removal of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra on five grounds of “misbehaviour,” the first time in the history of India that such a motion has been initiated against the country’s top judge.
Leaders of the opposition parties, led by Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, met Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and handed over the notice signed by 71 members of the Upper House.
While seven members have retired since the time they signed the notice — it has been in the works for several weeks — it still has 64 signatories.
The removal motion can be moved even when Parliament is not in session, and requires the signature of 50 Rajya Sabha MPS or 100 Lok Sabha members.
Besides the Congress, those who signed the notice include members of the Samajwadi The first charge relates to an alleged bribery scandal involving Lucknow-based Prasad Education Trust, which ran a medical college. It was an “act of misbehaviour” on part of the CJI , the notice says, to deny permission to prosecute Allahabad HC judge Narayan Shukla.
The Allahabad judge was alleged to have been bribed to deliver a favourable judgement to PET, which the union govern- Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India-marxist, Communist Party of India, Nationalist Congress Party and the Indian Union Muslim League. Nominated member KTS Tulsi also signed the motion.
No CJI has ever been ment had barred from admitting students. The trust had moved the Allahabad court and the SC, where the CJI also heard it. Meanwhile, CBI was investigating the alleged bribery scandal.
The second charge is that the CJI dealt administratively and judicially with a writ petition “in which he too was likely to fall within the scope of investigation”. The notice lists the November 9 incident when Justice Chelameswar was told (by the CJI) not to hear a matter since it was with a different bench. This was a petition related to the CBI investigation into PET.
The third charge is that the letter by which Chelameswar
impeached in India, and any decision on the notice by the Opposition parties against justice Misra is likely to be taken by Naidu following consultations with legal experts.
The removal has been sought under provisions of the Constitution dealing with the appoint- was informed of the case allotment was “antedated”. It was dated November 6.
The fourth charge is that the Chief Justice acquired land when he was an advocate by giving a false affidavit. “The Chief Justice surrendered the land only in 2012 after he was elevated to the Supreme Court” despite the allotment being cancelled years earlier, the notice says.
The fifth charge relates to the “abuse of exercise of power” by the Chief Justice in choosing to send sensitive matters to particular benches by “misusing his authority as Master of the Roster with the likely intent to influence the outcome.”
ment and removal of Supreme Court judges.
A message left at the office of the Chief Justice seeking his comment on the opposition parties’ move elicited no response. NEWDELHI: The opposition’s notice of a motion to remove CJI Dipak Misra is “a revenge petition” filed after the Congress’s falsehood had been established in the case relating to Judge BH Loya’s death, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday in a blog post. He said the notice is an attempt to intimidate a judge and send a message to other judges — that if you don’t agree with us, 50 MPS are enough for a revenge action. “The charges read out are issues those which have been settled by judicial orders or by precedent. Some issues are stale, trivial and have nothing to do with judicial functions,” Jaitley wrote in a blog, on a day Congress and other opposition parties submitted a notice to RS chairman M Venkaiah Naidu for initiating impeachment proceedings against the CJI.