CHENNAI: Members of Parliament belonging to the INDIA bloc parties from Tamil Nadu on Tuesday submitted a formal notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking the initiation of a motion to remove Justice G R Swaminathan of the Madras High Court.
The notice, signed by 107 MPs from both Houses, invokes Article 217 read with Article 124 of the Constitution and lists three grounds for the judge’s impeachment.
In the notice, the MPs allege that Justice Swaminathan’s conduct “raises serious questions regarding impartiality, transparency, and the secular functioning of the judiciary.”
They further accuse him of showing “undue favouritism” towards senior advocate M. Sricharan Ranganathan and “advocates of a particular community.”
The third allegation claims that he has been “deciding cases based on a particular political ideology” and in a manner inconsistent with the “secular principles of the Indian Constitution.” Copies of letters earlier sent by MPs to the President and the Chief Justice of India have also been appended.
The move follows days of political tension in Tamil Nadu over Justice Swaminathan’s recent order permitting the lighting of a lamp on a post near a dargah on Thiruparankundram hill during the Karthigai Deepam festival.
The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department, which manages the temple, had argued that the long-standing practice has been to light the lamp at the Utchipillaiyar temple atop the hill, and cited previous High Court orders supporting that tradition.
A motion for the removal of a High Court or Supreme Court judge can be introduced in either House. If the Speaker admits the notice, a three-member inquiry committee comprising a Supreme Court judge, a Chief Justice of a High Court, and an eminent jurist will examine the charges. If the committee upholds the allegations, the motion must be passed by both Houses—first by the House where it was introduced—by a simple majority of the total membership and a two-thirds majority of members present and voting.