Vice President Rejects Impeachment Motion

The motion for impeaching Chief Justice Dipak Misra has predictably been rejected by the Vice President Venkaiah Naidu. The motion had been submitted by 64 MPs of the Rajya Sabha. They had listed five grounds in support of their motion, which drew heavily from the Medical College Bribery case, as well as the Judges’ press conference. The Order passed by the Vice President in this regard dismissed the motion on three grounds: no proved misbehaviour, it is an internal matter of the Supreme Court, and that the MPs violated the rule from the handbook.

The vice president stated that there was no ‘proved misbehaviour’. This is because the words used in Article 124(4) state that the grounds for impeachment are proved misbehaviour or incapacity. Naidu opined that the grounds listed in the motion constituted suspicions and therefore, could not be considered proved misbehaviour. The Order went on to state that some of the allegations in the motion were internal matters of the Supreme Court, and getting involved in these matters would constitute an attack on the judicial freedom. To support this contention, he quoted from the decision in Kamini Jaiswal v. Union of India, which was regarding the Medical Colleges Bribery case.

The third ground on which he rejected the motion, was that the MPs had violated the Handbook for Members of Rajya Sabha. As per the provisions in the handbook, the MPs are prohibited from publicising any Notice submitted, until it is circulated among all the members of the house.

The attempt by the 64 MPs was in vain. Even if the motion would have been allowed and committee would have been constituted under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, it was unlikely that the motion would have been passed by the requisite majority in both the houses. The reason is simple math; the opposition does not have the numbers, even if they all band together. Whether the present motion constituted an attack on judicial independence, is subjective. However, the fact remains that in its present avatar, the judiciary is safe, thanks to an ever watchful eyes of the executive.