CONGRESS WITHDRAWS PETITION CHALLENGING VENKAIAH NAIDU’S REJECTION OF CJI IMPEACHMENT

Congress on Tuesday withdrew its petition against Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu’s decision to reject the impeachment motion moved against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. The move followed the Constitution bench’s refusal to give the petitioners, two Congress MPs, a copy of the administrative order allotting the case to the five-judge bench.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal argued that the CJI did not have the power to allocate the matter to the Constitution bench by an administrative order. It was beyond the authority of the registrar concerned to list the matter directly before the bench, he said.

Meanwhile, Attorney General K K Venugopal, who appeared for the V-P, said the CJI had the power to do so. The Constitution bench, formed to hear the CJI impeachment, did not include the four senior-most judges of the top court, who went public about their grievances over CJI Misra’s running of the court and allocation of cases.