CJIRS Chairman holds the key to CJI’s fate

NEW DELHI: With 165 days left of the tenure of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, he is again in the line of fire of Opposition parties that have sought to move an impeachment motion against him.

The incumbent CJI, who is due to retire on October 2, has been surrounded with controversies from the day he took over as the 45th Chief Justice of India.

The only time the impeachment process against a judge reached the final stage was in the case of Justice V Ramaswami of the Supreme Court in 1993, but the final vote failed to get a two-third majority in the Lok Sabha.

All eyes in the present case will now be on Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu. The Lok Sabha Speaker or the Upper House Chairman can accept or reject the notice of the motion for impeachment of the CJI or any other Supreme Court judge.

The Chair can reject the motion after consultations with the legal experts if s/he believes it is filed on frivolous grounds or is legally untenable.

If the notice of the motion for impeachment is accepted, the Speaker or the Chairman forms a three-member committee to investigate the charges. The inquiry committee comprises a senior judge of the Supreme Court, a high court judge and a distinguished jurist.

The committee examines the charges levelled in the motion and investigates any misbehaviour by or incapacity of the judge.

The option of judicial review is available if the Chairman was to reject the impeachment motion, but the law is not clear on this.

Since the case pertains to the sitting CJI, any possible petition against the Chairman’s order, if he rejects the motion, can’t be heard by a bench which the top judge is a part of.

Ideally, the case would then go to another bench headed by the next seniormost judge, who currently is Justice J. Chelameswar, who was one of the four top SC judges who had held the press conference against the conduct of CJI Misra.

In previous cases, the judges against whom impeachment motion was moved, had recused himself from hearing cases. But this isn’t codified either.

In case the CJI is impeached before June 23—the possibility of which is very less—he will be replaced by Justice Chelameswar. If he is impeached after June 23, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who is otherwise next in line to succeed CJI Misra, will become the Chief Justice.