*New Delhi: *Moving an impeachment motion against Chief Justice of IndiaDipak Misra, parliamentarians from seven opposition parties led by theCongress have listed five allegations against the top judge. The motionsigned by 71 members of Rajya Sabha has been submitted to Vice President MVenkaiah Naidu who is also the chair of the upper house.
The Constitution of India says a Supreme Court judge can be impeached onlyon the grounds of “proved misbehavior or incapacity”.
The motion has been moved on “five grounds of misbehavior”, senior Congressleader Ghulam Nabi Azad told a press conference.
The move, the first in the history of India, had been in the works sinceJanuary when four senior judges of the Supreme Court went public in anunprecedented press conference, saying that “things are not in order” withwhat they described as the “administration of the Supreme Court”.
“The charges suggest conduct unbecoming of a person holding the office ofthe Chief Justice of India,” said Congress leader Kapil Sibal.
The first allegation relates to a CBI probe into a medical college scam inUttar Pradesh involving the Prasad Education Trust. The investigatingagency had filed a case against a retired judge of the Orissa High Courtand five others in the alleged corruption case. The CBI had soughtpermission to lodge an FIR against a sitting judge of the Allahabad highcourt.
“The denial of permission to the CBI to register an FIR against JusticeNarayan Shukla of the Allahabad High Court, when the CBI sharedincriminating information with the Chief Justice was itself an act ofmisbehavior,” said Mr Sibal, a former Law Minister.
Opposition has listed “five grounds of misbehavior” by the Chief Justice ofIndiaListing down its second allegation, the opposition says the Chief Justicedealt on the administrative as well as judicial sidelink>witha petition that sought an investigation into the alleged corruption case inwhich “he too was likely to fall within the scope of investigation”.
On November 9, 2017 when the petition was mentioned before JusticeChelameswar, the No. 2 judge in the Supreme Court hierarchy, as the CJI wasin a Constitution Bench,it was directed to be listed later the same day.When the matter was taken up, a note dated November 6 was placed before thejudges.
The opposition alleges that the note that said that was presentedbefore JusticeChelameswarlink>wasantedated or dated a few days back. “The charge of antedating is by allaccounts a very serious charge,” said Mr Sibal.
The fourth allegation relates to the Chief Justice having acquired landwhen he was an advocate by giving an “affidavit which was found to befalse”. Despite the orders of the ADM cancelling the allotment in 1985, theChief Justice surrendered the land only in 2012 after he was elevated tothe Supreme Court, the opposition alleges.
The fifth charge relates to the “abuse of exercise of power” by the ChiefJustice in choosing to send sensitive matters to particular benches by”misusing his authority” as master of the roster.
This allegation is similar to what the four judges had alluded to in theirpress conference, the immediate trigger being the petitions seeking anindependent probe into the death of Judge Loya.
Senior jurists say the allegations are untenable.
“You don’t move for impeachment against a judge on grounds that are nottenable at all. It causes great harm to the public perception of thejudiciary. The impeachment motion is totally ill-conceived,” formerAttorney General Soli Sorabjee told NDTV.