Fifty-six former Supreme Court and high court judges have condemned the Lok Sabha Opposition’s move to impeach a Madras High Court judge for “undue favouritism” along communal lines, saying this was an attempt to intimidate the judiciary and undermine its independence.
“This is a brazen attempt to browbeat judges who do not fall in line with the ideological and political expectations of a particular section of society,” the joint statement
said.
“If such an attempt is permitted to proceed, it would cut at the very roots of our democracy and the independence of the judiciary.”
Some 107 INDIA bloc MPs had on Tuesday submitted an impeachment resolution to the Speaker against Justice G.R. Swaminathan, accusing him of “favouring advocates from a particular community” and “deciding cases based on particular political ideology and against the secular principles of the Constitution”.
The judge had last week directed the Subramaniya Swamy Temple on the Thiruparankundram Hill in Tamil Nadu to revive the “tradition” of lighting a lamp near a pillar close to the Sikandar Badushah Dargah. He had ordered CISF protection for (Hindu) devotees to conduct the rituals.
The state’s DMK government did not allow the order to be carried out, prompting the judge to issue a contempt notice. The state has appealed the contempt order and sought a stay on it before the Supreme Court, which is yet to hear the matter.
The signatories to Friday’s joint statement included former Supreme Court judges such as Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Hemant Gupta, former Rajasthan High Court Chief Justice Anil Deo Singh and former Patna High Court Chief Justice Narasimha Reddy.
They took “serious exception to the attempt being made by certain members of Parliament and other senior advocates to impeach” Justice Swaminathan.
“…Even if the reasons mentioned by the signatory member(s) of Parliament are taken at face value, they are wholly inadequate to justify resorting to such a rare, exceptional and serious constitutional measure as impeachment,” the statement said.
It compared the MPs’ move to the way the then government had, during the Emergency, tried to arm-twist judges who refused to “toe the line”.
“The supersession of three senior-most judges of the Supreme Court after the decision in ‘Kesavananda Bharati’, the sidelining of Justice H.R. Khanna after his famous dissent in ADM Jabalpur, are sobering reminders of how political overreach can damage judicial independence,” the statement said.
It said the current impeachment bid was not aone-off aberration but reflected a troubling pattern of segments of the political class seeking to discredit and intimidate judges whenever their rulings failed to align with their interests.
“The unprecedented bid in 2018 to initiate impeachment proceedings against then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the sustained campaigns of vilification directed at Chief Justices Ranjan Gogoi, S.A. Bobde and Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud while they were in office, and the targeted attacks now being mounted against the incumbent CJI, Justice Surya Kant, whenever a judgment/ remark displeases a political constituency, are all manifestations of the same trend,” the statement said.
All these judges had faced criticism from the Opposition on matters ranging from alleged corruption and comments on the Rohingyas to the handling of the Supreme Court judges’ roster and the Ayodhya verdict of 2019.
“This is not principled, reasoned criticism of judicial decisions; it is an attempt to weaponise impeachment and public calumny as instruments of pressure...,” the statement said.
Speaker Om Birla has yet to take a decision on the impeachment resolution. He can either dismiss it or form a committee of judges and jurists to probe the charges.
If the panel gives the green light, the Lok Sabha and then the Rajya Sabha will have to debate the matter and vote for impeachment by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting, and a majority of the total House strength, for the judge to be removed.
No judge has been successfully impeached in India so far, and the Opposition lacks the numbers in Parliament to remove Justice Swaminathan.