Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday said his decision to reject the impeachment notice against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra was “timely and not a hasty one” and came after over a month of due diligence.
At a meeting with Supreme Court lawyers on Tuesday, Naidu said, “Some Honorable Members of the House had a point of view and the right to express it while I had a responsibility cast on me. I have done my job and am satisfied with it”.
Even as the Opposition has threatened to challenged Naidu’s order in the Supreme Court, officials pointed out that it was not the first such instance. “Chief Justice of India is the highest judicial functionary of the country and any issue in public domain concerning him requires to be resolved at the earliest following prescribed procedures so as to prevent the atmosphere from being further vitiated. Issues raised in the notice mostly pertained to the functioning of the Supreme Court and they have to be resolved internally. Any other means of seeking to address them amounts to interference in the independence of judiciary,” an undaunted Naidu stated.
Mr. Naidu told the lawyers that Rajya Sabha Chairman’s office is not merely a post office, its constitutional authority and the decision to dismiss the impeachment motion by the Opposition was timely and not taken in haste.
He maintained that the notice lacked substantial merit and that the allegations were neither “tenable nor admissible”.
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