Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu has rejected the impeachment motion against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, moved by 7 opposition parties. The impeachment notice had come a day after the Supreme Court rejected a batch of petitions seeking an independent probe into the death of Judge B H Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. Signatures of 64 lawmakers from seven parties were submitted on Friday.
The order passed by Shri Naidu states,
“The motion presented by the MPs indicates a mere suspicion, conjecture or an assumption in the Prasad Education Trust case. The same does not constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt required to make out a case of proved misbehavior.”
The order said the conversations between third parties with dubious credentials cannot themselves constitute material evidence against CJI.
“Going through the allegations mentioned in the notice, I am of the view they are neither tenable nor admissable. The allegations emerging from the case have a serious tendency of undermining the independence of the judiciary, which is the basic tenet of the Constitution of India.”
The order further said,
I am of the clear opinion that all facts, as in the motion, read with the context of the annexed documents, do not make out a case under Article 124 (4) of the Constitution which can lead any reasonable mind to conclude that the Chief Justice of India on these facts can be ever held guilty of “misbehaviour”.
Shri Naidu further noted,
“As heirs to an illustrious democratic tradition and custodians of the present and future of democratic polity, we should, in my view, collectively strengthen and not erode the foundations of the grand edifice bequeathed to us by the Constitution makers. We cannot allow any of our pillars of governance to be weakened by any thought, word, or action.”
Rajya Sabha
[Order Dt. 23.4.2018]