Congress leader and Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal withdrew the petition challenging the vice-president’s decision to reject the notice of removal motion against CJI Dipak Misra from the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Two Congress Rajya Sabha MPs earlier filed the petition — Rajya Sabha MPs Partap Singh Bajwa from Punjab and Amee Harshadray Yajnik from Gujarat — challenging the vice-president’s decision to reject the notice of removal motion against the Chief Justice. A five-judge bench of Justices A K Sikri, SA Bobde, N V Ramana, Arun K Mishra and Adarsh K Girl dismissed the petition as withdrawn. Sibal’s appearance for the two RS Congress MPS was objected by two advocates R P Luthra and Ashwini Upadhyay who said the Bar Council of India prohibits those advocate politicians who have signed the notice of removal motion from arguing the same case. But the apex court said it was for Sibal to decide whether to argue or not.
The judges referred the cases, including a petition seeking an inquiry into the death of Judge B H Loya, who was leading over the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter trial where BJP chief Amit Shah was a main accused. Later, Shah was discharged in the case. Subsequently, Indian national Congress submitted an impeachment motion against the CJI Dipak Misra in Rajya Sabha while the government said the move was aimed to intimidate the judiciary. The challenge to Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and Vice-President ’s decision to reject the impeachment motion was mentioned before a bench of Justices Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul dramatically on Monday.
In his order, Venkaiah Naidu had said the motion did not fit the requirement of proved misconduct and lacked “substantial and verifiable” evidence of wrongdoing and that opposition MPs were themselves unsure as reflected by their use of slogans like “may have been” and “appears to have” while stating their case.
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