SC grants 2 weeks time to the Centre to respond

New Delhi, Mar 30 (UNI) The Supreme Court today granted two weeks' time to the Centre to file its response to a petition filed by senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Jaswant Singh seeking removal of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla.

A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhan and V S Sirpurkar adjouned the hearing of the two petitions filed by Jaswant Singh and Mr Chander Bhushan Singh,a BJP MP seeking removal of Chawla on the grounds of his murky antecedents as he was censured for emergency excesses by Justice Shah Commission and Congress party MPs have been contributing to the trusts run by his family members including his wife Rupika Chawla from the MPLAD scheme funds.

The complaint filed with the President of India A P J Abdul Kalam was referred by him to the central government instead of referring the same to the Chief Election Commissioner whose concurrence is a must for removal of an Election Commissioner.

Chawla in his reponse had denied the allegations and the CEC has said that he can not do anything unless and until the matter was referred to him.

Attorney General of India Milon K Banerjee had advised the Union government not to proceed in the matter as the allegations were related to the period when Chawla was not the EC.

UNI