CJI impeachment: Warned Rahul, Sonia against move, says Mamata; top updates

Unprecedented notice given by 7 Opposition parties, led by Congress, to impeach CJI Dipak Misra, was rejected by Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu. Find latest updates on CJI Dipak Misra impeachment

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra's impeachment motion being rejected by Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice-President of India M Venkaiah Naidu set off another political storm, with the Congress, which spearheaded the impeachment notice, saying it would challenge the "illegal" order in the Supreme Court. Former Law Minister and Congress leader Kapil Sibal termed Naidu's rejection of the impeachment notice as illegal and unconstitutional, adding that it was done in a "tearing hurry". The BJP, for its part, thanked Naidu for warding off an "act of blasphemy" towards the Constitution. Dealing a blow to the Opposition, Naidu on Monday rejected the impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra, saying there was a lack of "credible and verifiable" information on the charges of "misbehaviour" against the CJI.    

While the BJP had a reason to cheer, as the Congress-led impeachment notice appeared to sink, top sources in the government said that Rajya Sabha Chairman Naidu had the "statutory right" to reject a notice for impeaching a judge. "The chairman has the statutory right to reject the motion and statutory obligation to consult before arriving at a decision," a top government functionary said, adding, "sufficient grounds have to be proved to trigger an inquiry (by a three-member panel headed by a Supreme Court judge)... the evidence has to be contemporaneous". According to reports, Naidu's rejection of the impeachment motion came after extensive consultations with legal and constitutional experts. 

After Naidu's rejection, BJP President Amit Shah lashed out at the Congress, saying the Opposition's move was part of a larger trend to demonise and weaken every institution that seeks to maintain its individual identity and not kowtow to the 'dynasty', in a reference to the Gandhi-Nehru family at the helm of the Congress. Apart from the Congress, the Left also criticised Naidu. CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said Naidu had not followed the laid-down rules in rejecting the impeachment motion against CJI Misra. 

It wasn't just the BJP and certain government functionaries. A former Supreme Court judge and a retired high court judge also found merit in Naidu's order rejecting the impeachment notice against CJI Misra, saying the move was politically motivated and that the charges levelled against the CJI were not backed by proof. 

Seven Opposition parties, led by the Congress, had last week moved the notice before Naidu to impeach the Chief Justice of India on five grounds of "misbehaviour". This was the first time that such a notice had been filed against a sitting CJI. 

Here are the top 10 developments around the motion for Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra's impeachment being rejected by Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice-President of India M Venkaiah Naidu:

1) 'A suicidal future move', says Jaitley on Congress plan to move SC: The Congress party's intention to move Supreme Court, challenging the rejection of its impeachment motion against the Chief Justice by the Rajya Sabha Chairman, is "a suicidal future move", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday.

The senior BJP leader said in a Facebook post that the Chairman/ Speaker of either House of Parliament has the sole discretion whether to admit the motion or to decline to do so.

"The power to admit or to decline a motion is part of the legislative process of Parliament," he said, adding that Parliament is supreme in its own jurisdiction and its process cannot be subjected to judicial review. This is his second Facebook post within a week on impeachment motion against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.



 

"The incidental impact of this has been a growing tendency of lawyer Members to drag intra court disputes into the parliamentary process. The misconceived motion for the impeachment of the Chief Justice of India is just one example of this," said, Jaitley, who is also Leader of the Rajya Sabha.

In the post, 'Why the Malafide Impeachment Motion was bound to fail?', he said the Congress party is capable of dragging the judges into an unsavoury controversy and make them controversial "should their judicial opinion not appear favourable in the cases in which the Party has an interest".

2) Mamata Banerjee dubs move as 'wrong': Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday criticised the impeachment bid as "wrong" and said she had cautioned Sonia and Rahul Gandhi against the move. West Bengal Chief Minister Banerjee said her party did not support the impeachment move as it did not want to interfere in the judiciary. Mamata Banerjee said the Congress wanted the support of her party on the impeachment move but she did not approve of it.

"The Congress was wrong to give impeachment notice against the CJI. The Congress wanted us to support it. But we did not," she told News 18 Bangla channel.
 

3) Venkaiah Naidu says his decision ‘timely, not hasty’: Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday said his decision to reject the impeachment motion against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra was "timely and not a hasty one" and came after over a month of due diligence, according to news agency PTI. 

“I have done the just thing in the best possible manner expected of me,” sources quoted Naidu as saying, a day after he rejected the impeachment motion.

He said his decision was in strict conformity with the provisions of the Constitution and the Judges Inquiry Act of 1968.

"I have done my job and am satisfied with it,” Naidu was quoted as telling a group of 10 Supreme Court lawyers who met him to compliment him over the decision.

The Rajya Sabha chairman's office is not a mere post office but a constitutional functionary, Naidu, who is also the Vice President, told the group.

According to sources, Naidu said the chief justice of India is the highest judicial functionary of the country and "any issue in public domain concerning him requires being resolved at the earliest following prescribed procedures so as to prevent the atmosphere from being further vitiated,” added PTI.
 

4) Congress to move petition in Supreme Court after Naidu rejects impeachment notice against CJI Misra: Congress lashed out at Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu for rejecting the impeachment notice filed by Opposition parties against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. Further, Congress said that it would move the Supreme Court to challenge the illegal order, which had shattered the confidence of the people. Congress leader Kapil Sibal told reporters that Naidu's order jeopardised the country's legal system and said that the government was not keen to see a probe into the case. The order had shattered the confidence of the people and jeopardised the legal system, he added.  

"We will certainly move the petition in the Supreme Court. We are confident that when we move the petition, the CJI will have nothing to do with it so that it is heard and the serious issues, which are constitutional in nature and which will determine whether we bring transparency to the system, would be heard in the court," Sibal said.

Read our previous copy on highlights of the Opposition's CJI Misra impeachment motion being rejected: CJI impeachment: Naidu order on motion illegal, says Congress; highlights 

5) Congress' Sibal alleges BJP may have information they do not want coming out in the CJI matter: After Naidu rejected the impeachment notice against CJI Misra, the Congress alleged that perhaps the BJP-led government at the Centre was trying to ensure that "a lot of information" does not "come on record" by "scuttling the inquiry" into the allegations made against the CJI. "To say the least, the order is unprecedented, illegal, ill-advised, and hasty," Sibal said. "It seems that the government is very keen that this (charge made in the petition) must not be allowed to be inquired into. Maybe they have information that the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) has information, maybe by scuttling the inquiry they don't want a lot of information to come on record. It puts the judicial system into jeopardy," he said. "The order destroys the legitimate processes of the law. It seeks to ensure that no inquiry takes place," he added.

  

6) Why the Congress says the rejection of impeachment motion against CJI Misra is 'unprecedented', 'illegal': Sibal, who described Naidu's move as "unprecedented", stressed that never before in India's history had a motion moved by Members of Parliament (MPs) been dismissed at the preliminary stage. "It is illegal because the chairman has passed an order which is required to be passed after a full-fledged inquiry," Sibal said, adding that the Rajya Sabha chairman had to only ascertain whether the motion was in order. Substantiating his argument, Sibal said that once the motion is admitted, then the under the Judges (Inquiry) Act of 1968, the motion is sent to a three-member panel -- which includes a sitting chief justice of a high court, a judge of the Supreme Court, and a legal luminary -- and added that this did not happen in this case. 

He also termed the upper house chairman's decision as "ill-advised", saying that he should have consulted the judges in the collegium taking a call on the privilege motion. "It is ill-advised because the procedure requires him to consult CJI before he admits the motion. Now that he cannot consult CJI obviously (in this case), he should have consulted other members of the collegium. But he has chosen not to do that," Sibal said. He further said some of the allegations mentioned in the motion relate to what is happening in court, so Naidu should have consulted other judges. 

Read our detailed copy on what former judges and legal experts have to say about Opposition's impeachment motion against CJI Misra: CJI Dipak Misra impeachment suicidal, hara-kiri: Top 10 law experts' quotes 

7) BJP calls Congress' CJI impeachment move 'act of blasphemy towards the Constitution': While the Congress lashed out at Naidu, the BJP jumped to his defence, saying that the Rajya Sabha Chairman's office was not a post office meant to forward applications it received. Instead, according to the ruling party, it has to apply its mind judiciously, which Naidu did in rejecting the impeachment motion against CJI Misra. "We thank him. He did not allow his office to be misused, " BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi said.   

Lekhi cited Naidu's order, in which he referred to the use of words like "prime facie" and "may have been" by Opposition parties in their charges against CJI Misra, to highlight that the Opposition's allegations indicated a mere suspicion, a conjecture or an assumption against the CJI. "It was the grossest abuse of power of impeachment by the Congress," Lekhi said, terming it an act of blasphemy towards the Constitution.

BJP says Congress trying to show the world that India is a 'banana republic': After Naidu rejected the Opposition's impeachment notice against CJI Misra, BJP's Lekhi accused the Congress of adopting "intimidatory" tactics towards the Supreme Court. Lekhi said that Congress' move was not an attack on the individual (CJI Misra) but an institution (Supreme Court) as it wanted to create anarchy by making people "lose" faith in the judiciary. 

Further, the BJP spokesperson claimed that the Congress was trying to create an impression in the world that India was a banana republic, something it had turned the country into when it was in power, by "disrupting institutions". Lekhi added that the country's institutions were "very strong" and commanded the reverence of its people. The Congress is confusing rule of law with "rules of dynasty", she said.

   

8) 'Naidu has statutory right to reject notice to impeach a judge': Facing the heat from the Opposition over V-P Naidu's rejection of the move to impeach CJI Misra, top sources in the government said that the Rajya Sabha Chairman has the "statutory right" to reject a notice to impeach a judge. Citing provisions in the Judges Inquiry Act, the sources pointed out that the Rajya Sabha Chairman or Lok Sabha Speaker can "either admit the motion or refuse to admit the same" based on consultations and the material available.    

Commenting on the matter, a top government functionary said that the Rajya Sabha Chairman "has the statutory right to reject the motion and statutory obligation to consult before arriving at a decision", adding that "mere numbers" are not enough to "trigger" the motion. The functionary referred to Article 124 of the Constitution, saying that the notice should have grounds of "proved misbehaviour or incapacity", adding that "those who complain must be sure of the grounds for removal" According to the functionary, in the present case, "the complainants were not sure".

"Sufficient grounds have to be proved to trigger an inquiry (by a three-member panel headed by a SC judge)...the evidence has to be contemporaneous," the functionary said. 

9) BJP's Amit Shah says Congress trying to 'demonise and weaken' every institution: After Naidu rejected the Opposition's impeachment motion against CJI Misra, BJP President Amit Shah on Monday hit out at Congress and its President Rahul Gandhi, accusing them of seeking to "demonise and weaken" every institution maintaining its individual identity. "Right now, the buzzword for the Congress and their friends is 'impeachment'. The judiciary, which is an institution that is trusted by 125 crore (1.25 billion) Indians, has invited the wrath of Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in particular," said Shah.  

"I will not get into the reasons (which everybody knows) but I will say that this is a part of a larger trend to demonise and weaken every institution that seeks to maintain its individual identity and (does) not kowtow to the dynasty," he said in a Facebook post. 

10) CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury says Naidu did not follow the laid-down rules: CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury slammed Naidu's decision to reject the Opposition's impeachment motion against CJI Misra. "I am sorry to say that about the honourable Vice-President and Chairman of Rajya Sabha (Naidu), but I think that the methods, that had been very clearly laid down -- both in the constitutional procedures and the rules -- have not been followed," Yechury told news agencies.   

Yechury said that the presiding officer of either House, in which the impeachment motion has been moved, does not have the discretion to independently decide about the validity of the motion. Instead, echoeing Congress' Sibal, he said that the motion needs to be referred to a three-member committee, which normally should include a Supreme Court judge, a high court chief justice, and a jurist.  

Yechury said that if that committee gives the findings, saying the impeachment motion is untenable, then the Chairman could have taken the decision. "I can say this with a certain degree of experience, because... (of the impeachment notice) I moved against Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court," the 65-year-old Left leader said. 

Besides the Congress, MPs of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) were signatories to the impeachment notice.

Naidu met legal experts before rejecting impeachment notice: Before rejecting the Opposition's impeachment motion against CJI Misra, Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu held extensive consultations with leading legal and constitutional experts, sources told news agencies. The rejection of the notice, the sources added, came a day after Naidu held consultations with experts to determine the motion's maintainability. The sources said that Vice-President Naidu even re-scheduled his travel plans, considering the seriousness of the matter, to be able to meet these experts.

With agency inputs