CJI impeachment: 5-judge SC bench to hear plea against Naidu's order today

The Supreme Court has formed a Constitution Bench to hear the petition filed by two Congress MPs challenging vice president Venkaiah Naidu's decision to reject a motion filed by the party to remove Misra as the chief justice.

The list of business for the Supreme Court showed that the petition, which was mentioned today, would be heard on Tuesday by a bench comprising Justices A K Sikri, S A Bobde, N V Ramana, Arun Mishra and A K Goel.

Notably, the bench does not include the five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court Justices Jasti Chelameshwar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph, and Chief Justice Misra himself.

While Justice Sikri, who will head the bench, is number six in the seniority list, others follow him in the sequence of seniority.

It is significant that the matter has not been listed before the judges who are number two to five in the seniority.

This sudden development comes after the matter was mentioned on Monday before Justice Jasti Chelameswar.
Reportedly, Justice Chelameswar had said he would take a call on Tuesday on whether he should decide about listing of the petition but a bench to hear the case has been formed before he could make a decision.

These judges Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur and Kurian Jospeh -- had held the controversial January 12 press conference in which they had virtually revolted against the CJI by raising a litany of allegations against him.

The Congress and six other opposition parties last month moved a notice for removing Misra on grounds of "misbehaviour". Naidu, as Rajya Sabha chairman, rejected the notice holding that the allegations lacked merit.

Earlier in the day, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was one of the signatories to the impeachment notice in the Rajya Sabha, had mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar, the senior-most after CJI Misra.

OneIndia News (with PTI inputs)