Our Correspondent / NEW DELHI
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said, Congress and other opposition parties are using impeachment motion as a political tool.
Reacting to the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice of India submitted by the Congress and other opposition parties to the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Mr Jaitley said, it is a revenge petition after the falsehood of the Congress Party has been established in the Justice Loya death case.
In a Facebook post, Mr Jaitley said, the motion is an attempt to intimidate a Judge and send a message to other Judges, that if you don’t agree with them, fifty MP’s are enough for a revenge action.
The Minister said, charges leveled by the opposition are issues those which have been settled by judicial orders or by precedent. He said, some issues are stale, trivial and have nothing to do with judicial functions.
He said, the impeachment of a Judge of the Supreme Court is to be done only in the case of either his incapacity or on proven misconduct. Mr Jaitley said, both Houses of Parliament as political houses have been conferred the judicial power of impeachment.
The power is exercised in case of proven misconduct. He said, it is not difficult to collect fifty signatures of Rajya Sabha or hundred signatures of Lok Sabha members even on frivolous issues. But, trivialising the use of that power is a dangerous event.
Mr Jaitley said, to use the power as intimidatory tactics is a serious threat to judicial independence.