Caravan News
NEW DELHI — Concerned over the functioning of the Supreme Court of India, the issue raised by the four senior-most judges of the top court earlier this month, the Opposition is mulling to bring impeachment motion against Chief Justice Dipak Misra in the coming Budget session of the Parliament.
“Looks like the crisis is not resolved yet, so need to intervene and it’s time to play the role of executive. We are discussing with opposition parties on possibility of an impeachment motion against CJI in Budget session,” CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury was quoted as saying by the ANI news agency.
In an unprecedented move on January 12, four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court after CJI, Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph had gone public complaining about the functioning of the apex court, particularly the way cases are being allotted to benches ignoring the senior-most judges. Raising serious objections over the style of functioning of the Chief Justice, they had said that cases of national importance with far-reaching consequences are being allotted to benches without any rationale.
The judges also released their joint letter they had written to CJI seeking his attention to the issue about two months ago but they told the nation that they had to resort to the unprecedented route (press conference) as their all efforts failed.
The case of CBI Judge BH Loya’s death, which was assigned to a bench of junior judges January 12 morning, had worked as a trigger for the public outcry by the judges. After two hearings, the bench headed by justice Arun Mishra recused itself from the case and sent to appropriate bench. The case was then heard by a bench headed by CJI on Monday (Jan 22).
Meanwhile, the case of a Lucknow medical college involving alleged bribe to some judicial officers has further deepened the dark cloud over the highest court in the land. Only last week, some media outlets published transcripts of telephonic talks among persons involved in the case.
