The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by former apex court judge, Justice Markandey Katju, to quash a resolution passed against him by Parliament for derogatory comments on social media about Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose.
A Bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justices P.C. Ghose and U.U. Lalit held that though pleas against such parliamentary resolutions were maintainable in the apex court, this particular plea by Justice Katju deserves to be dismissed on merits.
Justice Katju had on June 29 last year moved the apex court seeking quashing of resolutions passed against him by both Houses of Parliament for calling Gandhiji and Bose British and Japanese “agents” respectively.
The former judge, in his Facebook post, had said both Houses of Parliament condemned him for his statements “calling Gandhi a British agent, and Subhas Chandra Bose a Japanese agent” without even giving him a hearing.
A former chairperson of the Press Council of India, Justice Katju had sought quashing of resolutions passed against him by the Lok Sabha on March 12 and the Rajya Sabha on March 11.
He had claimed that both Houses of Parliament lacked “competence” to condemn him.
