NEW DELHI: Senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Tuesday withdrew the petition challenging vice-president and Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah's Naidu decision to reject the notice of impeachment Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra from the Supreme Court.
A five-judge bench of Justices A K Sikri, SA Bobde, N V Ramana, Arun K Mishra and Adarsh K Girl dismissed the petition as withdrawn.
The petition was filed by two Congress Rajya Sabha MPs -- Partap Singh Bajwa from Punjab and Amee Harshadray Yajnik from Gujarat challenging the vice-president's decision to reject the motion of impeachment of CJI.
During the hearing, Sibal insisted on he be given a copy of the order allotting case to the 5 judges saying CJI did not have power to allocate the matter to Constitution bench by an administrative order.
However, the court asked Sibal what purpose it would serve if he was given a copy of the administrative order passed by the CJI.
Sibal maintained that only after getting the order would he decide whether to challenge it or accept it. But when the Supreme Court expressed reluctance to part with the administrative order, Sibal then decided to withdraw the petition.
Though the bench acknowledged the present situation as unprecedented but didn't agree on sharing the administrative order on how the Impeachment case had been listed before the Constitution Bench.
This led Sibal to question the bench as to what's so secret about the administrative order but the bench declined.
Attorney general K K Venugopal, appearing on behalf of Naidu questioned the move of petition filed by just 2 MPs while the original motion was signed by 64 MPs from seven political parties and said, “How can only two MPs from one political party have a grievance against the Rajya Sabha chairman's order rejecting the notice for removal motion when six other political parties appear to have accepted it?”
This led Sibal to retort by stating that next time he would come with a petition by 60 MPs.
Sibal's appearance for the two RS Congress MPs was objected by two advocates R P Luthra and Ashwini Upadhyay who said the Bar Council of India prohibits those advocate politicians who have signed the notice of removal motion from arguing the same case.
But the bench said it was for Sibal to decide whether to argue or not.
In his order, Naidu had said the motion did not meet the requirement of proved misconduct and lacked substantial and verifiable evidence of wrongdoing and that opposition MPs were themselves unsure as reflected by their use of phrases like “may have been” and “appears to have” while stating their case.