AMN / NEW DELHI
The two Congress MPs who challenged in the Supreme Court the rejection of notice on impeachment against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra by Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu withdrew their plea today.
They have questioned listing of their plea before a five-judge bench of the apex court. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the MPs, asked who passed the order for setting up the bench to hear the matter.
Sibal said the matter was listed before the bench through an administrative order. He said the Chief Justice of India cannot pass such orders in this matter.
After a 45-minute hearing, the five-judge bench headed by Justice A K Sikri declared the petition as dismissed as it has been withdrawn.
“Dismissed as withdrawn,” said the bench, headed by Justice AK Sikri after senior lawyer Kapil Sibal said that he would rather withdraw the petition if the court did not want to part with the details of the administrative order.
Sibal, representing MPs Partap Singh Bajwa and Amee H Yajnik, had argued that he would want to argue on merits only after the copy of the administrative order, under which the constitution bench has been set up, is provided to him.
“We should at least be told how this matter has been listed. What is so secret about this order? We want to see who has passed this order because we may challenge that order. We don’t want CJI to be involved with this matter at all since the proposed impeachment motion is against him. Or let this court declare it once and for all that this is an administrative order which can never be challenged,” Sibal argued.