Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday started the process of consultation on the Opposition’s impeachment notice against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra by speaking with Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal.
Mr. Naidu also spoke with the retired Supreme Court judge Sudarshan Reddy, the former Secretary-General of the Lok Sabha Subhash Kashyap, the former Law Secretary P.K. Malhotra, the former Legislative Secretary of the Rajya Sabha Sanjay Singh and senior officials of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat.
Reschedules tour
“He rescheduled his tour outside Delhi and returned to the capital as some of those he wanted to consult conveyed their availability on Sunday,” said an official of the Rajya Sabha.
Meanwhile, the Congress contested the allegation that Opposition leaders had violated Rajya Sabha rules by holding a press conference about the impeachment move.
At a press conference, the Congress cited a December 15, 2009 precedence when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was then Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury addressed the media about a motion for removal of a High Court judge.
The party argued that the charges against the CJI were “serious enough” to merit an inquiry.
“In our opinion, the Chairman performs an administrative or a quasi-administrative act where he had to check whether the motion is in order, whether it has valid signatures by the required number of MPs and whether what is mentioned in the petition are reasonable to be mentioned as charges,” Vivek Tankha, head of the Congress legal cell and Rajya Sabha member, said.
“We were concerned about it for the past three months. Then Supreme Court judges came to the press to say that ‘democracy is in peril’. Then there were some letters in the public domain that said the existence of the court is in danger. And the material that is there compelled the MPs to take a decision,” Mr. Tankha said.
The Congress leader said the handbook of the Rajya Sabha were “guidelines” and did not amount to “rules”.
