SC dismisses Congress plea as withdrawn

​New Delhi: Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Tuesday got a relief after two Congress MPs, challenging Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu's order rejecting the impeachment notice against him, withdrew their petitions from the Supreme Court. The top court expressed its reluctance to go into their contention questioning the setting up of a larger bench to hear the matter.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing on behalf of the two Congress MPs withdrew the petition challenging the rejection of an impeachment notice against Chief Justice Dipak Misra by Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu. Hours after the matter was mentioned before the bench headed by the second senior most judge of the apex court, Justice J S Chelameswar, the matter was referred to be heard by a Constitution bench headed by Justice A K Sikri.

The court dismissed the plea after Sibal sought to be given a copy of the order by virtue of which the matter was listed before a Constitution bench. “We wish to know whether the matter was referred to a Constitution bench on the basis of an administrative or a judicial order. I don’t know on what grounds it has been referred to a Constitution bench,” he said. “Once we have the order, we will decide if we wish to challenge it,” he added.

On 23 April, Venkaiah Naidu rejected the impeachment motion moved by the Congress-led Opposition on April 20, holding that it lacked substantial merit. The two petitioners, Partap Singh Bajwa and Amee Harshadray Yagnik, who are signatories to the impeachment motion, want a judges’ inquiry committee to be formed to hear the charges against Misra and the rejection of the impeachment notice as being ex facie “illegal and arbitrary of Article 14 (equality under law) of the Constitution of India.”

The petitioners argued that it is not the chairman’s prerogative to adjudicate over whether there has been any abuse by the CJI of his power as the master of the roster, as this is the job of an inquiry committee. By holding this charge as untenable, the order goes into an impermissible arena of quasi-judicial determination of the charge which is impermissible and illegal, they added.

Seeking the rejection order to be set aside, the MPs claimed that only one of the charges—relating to the CJI’s powers as master of the roster—was discussed in detail and that it does not even attempt to discuss the rest of the charges, failing which it is not possible to return any findings.

It was also stated that if Naidu’s order were to be accepted as legally correct, it would be tantamount to having a two- stage adjudicatory process with regard to a notice of motion filed under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968. This interpretation is “wholly perverse, and violative not only Article 124(4) & (5) of the Constitution of India but also the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968”, it was added.

Arguing that the charges made in the notice of motion were extremely serious, the two MPs sought that their veracity be tested through a full-fledged inquiry and not be adjudicated in “a whimsical manner” as RS chairman’s order sought to do.

Allegations against Misra include involvement in a conspiracy to pay bribes in relation to a medical admission scam, dealing with a case in which he was likely to fall under the scope of an investigation, antedating an administrative order and abuse of administrative power in allocating cases in the Supreme Court.