[I. <<According to Times Now, the draft on impeachment motion against CJI has been signed by Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad and many other leading Congress leaders. NCP’s Majeed Memon has also signed the same. Sources indicate the first issue in the draft is the case of Prasad Education trust (relating to [alleged payment of bribes to higher judiciary for] Medical college approval) where they allege the involvement of CJI Dipak Misra.>>
(Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.)] I/III. https://barandbench.com/congress-impeachment-motion-cji-dipak-misra/ Bar & Bench March 27, 2018 Congress party initiates impeachment process against CJI Dipak Misra FacebookTwitterWhatsAppShare2,358 Indian National Congress has initiated the process for impeachment of Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra. According to Times Now, the draft on impeachment motion against CJI has been signed by Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad and many other leading Congress leaders. NCP’s Majeed Memon has also signed the same. Sources indicate the first issue in the draft is the case of Prasad Education trust (relating to Medical college approval) where they allege the involvement of CJI Dipak Misra. Bar & Bench @barandbench Replying to @barandbench CJI impeachment gains steam. pic.twitter.com/2VwB79aZIl Bar & Bench @barandbench #CJIImpeachment - Sources indicate the the 1st issue on the draft is the case of Prasad Education trust case where they allege the involvement of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. 6:58 PM - Mar 27, 2018 39 60 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy Click here to read about the timeline in the Supreme Court regarding the Medical bribery case. Story to be updated. II/III. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/congress-circulates-draft-proposal-to-move-impeachment-motion-against-cji-dipak-misra-reports/articleshow/63490538.cms Congress circulates draft proposal to move impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra: Reports TIMESOFINDIA.COM | Updated: Mar 27, 2018, 20:14 IST HIGHLIGHTS The Congress has reportedly circulated a draft proposal to initiate impeachment proceedings against CJI Dipak Misra The NCP has extended its support to the impeachment motion drafted by the Congress The draft cites "abuse of authority to arbitrarily assign individual cases to select judges" as grounds for impeachment Chief Justice Dipak Misra (File photo)Congress circulates draft proposal to move impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra: Reports NEW DELHI: The Congress is making moves to initiate impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Times Now reported today. A draft proposal for moving an impeachment motion against the CJI has been circulated by to opposition parties by the Congress. The draft impeachment motion against the Chief Justice has already been signed by Congress heavyweights, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has decided to support it, NCP leader and senior advocate Majeed Memon told Times Now. "The Congress being the largest opposition party has little belatedly initiated the proceedings for the impeachment of the honourable Chief Justice of India," said Memon, adding that he too was a signatory to the draft on impeachment motion. The Congress has reportedly been holding several internal meetings to chalk-out a strategy on the impeachment motion, and has reached out to like-minded political parties for support. Informed sources said the Congress, backed by the Left, the NCP, the DMK and other regional parties, is set to move the impeachment motion in Parliament in the next few days if it is able to garner the mandatory signatures of a minimum 50 MPs. "A lot of opposition parties have signed a draft proposal for moving an impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra. Many parties like NCP, Left parties and I think TMC and Congress also have signed it (sic)," NCP leader D P Tripathi told ANI. The draft proposal deems "abuse of authority to arbitrarily assign individual cases to select judges" as grounds for moving the impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra. The first issue on the draft accuses Misra of illegal gratification in the Prasad Education Trust case, a bribery scam in which the institution allegedly gave kickbacks to senior judicial functionaries for clearance to set up a medical college. It further alleges that Misra had submitted a false affidavit in a land acquisition matter while he was still serving as an advocate. Speaking to Times Now, BJP leader Nalin Kohli said the impeachment motion against the CJI is a direct and ill-conceived move to politicise the judiciary. Given the timing of the draft note, the impeachment motion was designed to curtail the Chief Justice's role in politically-sensitive cases ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Kohli alleged. It may be recalled that when the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court had rebelled against the Chief Justice in January this year, they'd listed Misra's arbitrary way of assigning important cases to benches headed by junior judges as one of their main grievances. TOP COMMENT Corrupt Congress is showing its colours. During a few years back, congress supported one Judge of SC when impeachment motion was put in Parliament against that Judge because of corruption allegations... Read More Sanjeev Suri The unprecedented public attack against Misra, led by Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, had exposed fissures within the uppermost echelons of the judiciary. The CJI's refusal to reassign a PIL demanding probe into special CBI judge B H Loya's death to a bench headed by a senior judge, was what finally compelled the rebel quartet to call a press conference to complain about the serious infirmities and irregularities in the SC administration. The matter immediately took on a political dimension with Congress president Rahul Gandhi seizing upon the development to demand a probe into the death of Justice B M Loya, who had died while hearing the Sohrabuddin "fake" encounter case. BJP chief Amit Shah was named as an accused in the case, but was later acquitted by a CBI court. In Video: Congress circulates draft proposal to move impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra: Reports III. https://www.thequint.com/news/india/cji-dipak-misra-impeachment-motion-opposition-congress Impeachment Motion to be Moved Against CJI Dipak Misra: Reports VAKASHA SACHDEV UPDATED: 02H 40M AGOINDIA5 min read Two and a half months after four senior judges of the Supreme Court raised concerns about his administration of the Supreme Court of India, reports are emerging that an impeachment motion will be moved against the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra. A source close to the Congress party informed The Quint that the motion may be moved in the coming days. The impeachment motion will reportedly be moved by a combination of several opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha, though some reports have suggested that the Congress circulated the proposal which is now being taken forward. Back in January, the Congress had declined to say whether or not they would move to impeach the CJI, though CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury had suggested doing so. The Economic Times reported earlier on Tuesday that leaders of the Congress, TMC, NCP, CPI(M) and others had discussed the matter last week, “as they felt the CJI had failed to address the key issues raised by the four senior-most judges”. If the motion is successfully moved, CJI Misra will be the first Chief Justice of India and only the second Supreme Court judge, against whom impeachment proceedings have been initiated. No judge of the Supreme Court or High Courts has ever been removed from office. Why Impeachment? The four senior judges who held the press conference on 12 January had raised a number of concerns relating to the functioning of the Supreme Court, primary among which was the assignment of cases to inappropriate benches by CJI Misra (and previous CJIs). One such controversial assignment was of the Judge Loya case to a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, as confirmed by Justice Gogoi at the press conference. The letter released by the judges at the Supreme Court also raised concerns over decisions which took stances contrary to what they viewed as established precedent, such as a decision of Justices Lalit and Goel that seemed to indicate that there was no Memorandum of Procedure for appointment of Supreme Court judges in place at present. It is not clear if these issues are behind the impeachment proposal currently being circulated, though the CJI’s failure to address these issues was reportedly discussed by the opposition parties last week. The CJI did release a new roster for assignment of cases after the press conference, but this created more controversy than solutions as it assigned all PILs to his own court, and none of the major constitutional matters before the court were listed before any of the four senior judges: Justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Kurian Joseph and Lokur. Bar & Bench are reporting that the first issue on the draft is the Prasad Education Trust case, one of the medical bribery cases which rocked the higher judiciary last year. The CJI was on the bench which initially heard the Prasad Education Trust cases in the Supreme Court – the CBI was subsequently looking into allegations that retired Orissa High Court judge IM Quddusi had agreed to help the Trust get favourable orders in the case in the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court. Two petitions had been raised in the Supreme Court asking for a court-monitored investigation into these allegations. CJI Misra overturned a referral of the cases by Justice Chelameshwar and assigned them to a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, which dismissed both of them. The Committee for Judicial Accountability and Reforms had submitted a complaint to the five senior-most judges of the apex court after the CJI, which referenced these allegations. What Is the Procedure to Be Followed for Impeachment? The process of impeachment is described in Article 124(4) of the Constitution and the Judges (Inquiry) Act 1968. A judge can be removed on the grounds of “proved misbehavior or incapacity”. Neither misbehaviour nor incapacity are defined, but would include any criminal activity or other judicial impropriety. The steps are as follows: An impeachment motion against the judge needs to be raised in either of the Houses of Parliament. The motion can only be admitted by the Speaker in the Lok Sabha or Chairperson (by default, the Vice-President) in Rajya Sabha if it has the required levels of support: 100 MPs in Lok Sabha or 50 MPs in Rajya Sabha. 50 opposition MPs in the Rajya Sabha have already reportedly signed the motion to impeach CJI Misra. If the motion is admitted, a three-member committee is set up to investigate the allegations. The committee is to be made up of a Supreme Court judge, the Chief Justice of any High Court, and a ‘distinguished jurist’ (read: judge/lawyer/scholar) nominated by the Speaker/Vice-President. Once the committee prepares its report, this has to be submitted to the Speaker/Vice-President, who then also shares it with the other House. Both Houses of Parliament then need to pass an ‘address to the President’ asking for the judge to be removed. To succeed, this needs to be passed by a 2/3rds majority of the MPs present in each House during the vote, and must also exceed the 50 percent mark in each House. If both addresses succeed, then the President can remove the judge from his position by Presidential Order. The only time the process has got as far as the final step was in the case of Justice V Ramaswami of the Supreme Court. In 1993, the final vote failed to get a 2/3rds majority in the Lok Sabha. It is unclear if the impeachment proceedings would succeed against Justice Misra – the investigation itself is unlikely to be completed by the time he is supposed to retire in October 2018. However, if the process is initiated during this time, this could affect CJI Misra’s actions during the remainder of his tenure – there is considerable debate over whether or not he would need to recuse himself, or at least take no decisions relating to the significant issues before the Court such as the Babri Masjid case, the Aadhaar matter, or the review of the Supreme Court’s decision on Section 377 of the IPC. First Published: 02H 42M AGO -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
