NEW DELHI: Days after Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu rejected the impeachment motion against the present Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, two Congress Rajya Sabha MPs on Monday approached the Supreme Court challenging the decision.
Rajya Sabha MPs Partap Singh Bajwa and Amee Harshadray Yajnik have filed the petition against Naidu’s decision.
The petition, settled by Congress MP and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal has stated that Naidu's decision appears to be motivated by political consideration and should be set aside for being arbitrary and illegal.
“The rejection seems to be motivated by political consideration beyond the constitutional scheme which is buttressed by the fact that one of the charges against the Chief Justice is that he has been partial in assigning political sensitive cases pertaining to the ruling party before particular benches of this Hon’ble Court in order to get a predetermined outcome,” claimed the petition.
Today, senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentions the matter before Justice J Chelameswar for urgent listing stating that CJI can't list it nor can decide who will hear this.
However, Justice Chelameswar asked Sibal and Prashant Bhushan to come back tomorrow (Tuesday).
“None of the reasons given by the chairman in the impugned order carry any weight or are legally tenable. It deserves to be set aside for being wholly extraneous and ultra vires to the provisions of the Constitution of India and the Inquiry Act,” stated the petition while asking for a declaration that Vice President, as chairman of the Rajya Sabha, cannot exercise discretion and that he must set up an inquiry panel under the Judges' Inquiry Act, to probe the allegations against Justice Misra.
“In the absence of a full-fledged inquiry, it is not possible to return any findings on the same. Yet the impugned order, in a cavalier, cryptic and abrupt manner, shockingly holds that none of the other charges are made out without disclosing as to on what basis was this finding retuned,” said the plea.
The petition also stated that the charges contained in the Notice of Motion are extremely serious and merit a full-fledged inquiry to test their veracity read the petition, adding it cannot be adjudicated in a summary whimsical manner as the impugned order has sought to do.
Challenging the decision, the petition said the only discretion, with the chairman to reject the motion, is if it does not have the requisite number of signatures and that merits of the charges are for the inquiry committee to investigate and present a report on. The petition also claimed that the V-P rejected the notice without proper consultation.