CJI Dipak Misra impeachment: Opposition leaders at a press conference in Delhi after their meeting with Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu. (Express Photo by Anil Sharma)
Hours after the Congress and six Opposition parties gave a notice for moving an impeachment motion against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Congress leader and former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar said the move would be “counter-productive” arguing the “the remedy cannot be worse than the malaise.”
Kumar wasn’t alone.
There is a division in the Congress and many of the Opposition parties including the Trinamool Congress and the DMK were not signatories to the motion.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not sign. Sources said former Finance Minister P Chidambaram too was not a signatory. Lawyer-politician Abhishek Singhvi was the last MP to sign last Sunday after some prodding from the Congress high command. Sources in the Congress said he had advised against the move and was reluctant to sign but later relented. Also Read: CJI Dipak Misra impeachment notice unites opposition parties; Arun Jaitley calls it ‘revenge petition’
The petition has the signatures of 64 MPs whereas the combined strength of the seven parties stood at 79.
Kumar was candid. “It is a sad day and a watershed moment in the history of our country. The inescapable inter-institutional conflict will ill-serve our constitutional democracy. If Parliamentarians believe that the facts merit the initiation of the impeachment motion, they will be within their rights to initiate the process. But in my personal opinion, the move could be counter-productive,” he told The Indian Express. Also Read: CJI Dipak Misra impeachment: Here are five charges levelled by Opposition
He said even Justice J Chelameswar had suggested that “impeachment is not probably the only remedy to the misgivings pointed out by the judges.”
“Wisdom demands that we withdraw from the brink lest we repent at leisure. The remedy cannot be worse than the malaise. Clearly, all is not well in the highest court, yet whether the impeachment motion will serve a national purpose is debatable to say the least,” Kumar said.
Without naming his party, he said “it appears that the full dimensions of the move need to be further explored” and argued “in moments of crisis, democratic politics demands that conscientious dissent where necessary should be publicly stated to invigorate the democratic processes.”
Sources in the Trinamool Congress said political and practical compulsions forced it to stay away. The party was once not averse to the idea — party supremo Mamata Banerjee had told reporters in Parliament in March that the party would go with others on impeachment — but later revised its stand. There were many considerations, insiders say. The long process of impeachment, the fact that Mishra’s tenure gets over in October and that there is no proven “lack of integrity” as was there in the case of Justice Soumitra Sen who resigned ahead of being impeached.
As the opposition press conference started, the party’s national spokesman Derek O’Brien said: “I will not comment on this. At least we did not change our stand.” The jibe was apparently aimed at DMK MPs who signed the impeachment notice initially but were forced to rescind.
Trinamool sources say none of the two prominent lawyers in Trinamool, Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy and Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee, were amenable to the idea of impeachment. Others tried to explain the decision by citing Banerjee’s “respect” for institutions and that the party which is the “third largest in the Rajya Sabha” needs to play second fiddle to no one. “This is basically a pre-emptive strike by the Congress so that CJI Misra does not go on to become Lokpal. Deep down even they know nothing will come of this. Why should we play along?” asks another MP.
While sources in the DMK in Chennai said that the party’s position was to wait and watch when the matter comes to the House, the AIADMK which spent weeks stalling Parliament over the demand to set up a Cauvery Management Board, categorically said it was not going to support the impeachment.
DMK Rajya Sabha MP R S Bharathi, who is also the organisation secretary of the party, told The Indian Express: “We are not taking part in the impeachment motion. In the past also we did not support both impeachments against Justice Ramaswami and Justice Dinakaran. If there are any corruption charges levelled against a judge, that is one thing and we can take part. But this is against a judgment. We are with the opposition and with the Congress but in this particular matter we do not support them.”
Meanwhile, ADMK Rajya Sabha MP V. Maitreyan told The Indian Express: “Basically, we will not be supporting an impeachment, but our party high command will take a call.”