Fifty-eight members of the Rajya Sabha submitted a petition seeking the impeachment of justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court.
Fifty-eight members of the Rajya Sabha on Friday submitted a petition seeking the impeachment of justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court on grounds of financial misconduct.
The UPA government has not initiated impeachment proceedings against justice Sen despite chief justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan recommending his removal from office.
Sen, who has refused to step down, saying he did not do any wrong as a judge, allegedly received Rs32 lakh as the court-appointed receiver in a lawsuit between the Steel Authority of India and the Shipping Corporation of India and deposited the amount in his personal account.
Though he returned the money later, a three-member committee appointed by the CJI held him guilty of misconduct for preferring to retain the amount even after his appointment to the bench.
Following the inquiry, chief justice Balakrishnan recommended justice Sen’s removal to the prime minister. Under the Constitution, a judge’s removal can be sought on grounds of proven misconduct or incapacity.
At least 50 members of the Rajya Sabha or 100 of the Lok Sabha are required to initiate a move to impeach a Supreme Court or high court judge. The petition seeking justice Sen’s impeachment has been filed under Article 217 of the Constitution (removal of a high court judge) read with article 124 (removal of a Supreme Court judge).
Among those who have signed the petition submitted to vice-president Hamid Ansari are the BJP’s Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, and SS Ahluwalia, the CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat, the CPI’s D Raja, and JDU’s Sharad Yadav.
“The chief justice of India wrote the letter in August last year recommending that proceedings of removal be initiated (against justice Soumitra Sen) in accordance with constitutional procedures,” said CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury, who is among the lawmakers who have signed the petition.
“Why did the Congress itself not take any action for so long? ... Government should be asked why it did not move forward. Since they did not, we have taken the initiative,” he said.
The petition will be sent to the Rajya Sabha secretariat for verification of signatures. A committee will then be formed to consider it.
To be adopted, a resolution of impeachment needs the support of two-thirds of the members present and voting in each House of Parliament. Once it is adopted, the president has to order the judge’s removal.
As the petition has been filed in the Rajya Sabha, it will survive the demise of the current Lok Sabha and the constitution of a new one after the general election.
If it is taken up, this will be the second such motion to come up in Parliament. The earlier one was a motion to impeach justice V Ramaswami of the Supreme Court, who was arraigned on grounds of misuse of office as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
But the move was defeated in the Lok Sabha with members of the ruling Congress voting against it.
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