When judges face impeachment: V Ramaswami to Soumitra Sen, what happened in each of the 5 cases

Indian Express

13 hours ago

The Centre is likely to bring in an impeachment motion against Allahabad High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma in the Monsoon Session of Parliament next month.
An impeachment motion against a judge is a rare occurrence. There have been attempts to move the motion against judges of the Supreme Court and various High Courts only five times since Independence, with Parliament debating only two of those motions, while the rest either failed to get the support of the required number of MPs or were rejected.
Article 124(4) of the Constitution, which deals with this issue, says, 'A Judge of the Supreme Court shall not be removed from his office except by an order of the President passed after an address by each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present and voting.'
Here is a look at the five instances when motions were brought to impeach judges.
In 1993, Justice V Ramaswami was the first sitting judge of the Supreme Court to face impeachment for alleged financial misconduct during his tenure as Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The Lok Sabha debate on impeaching him took place on May 10 and 11 that year.
CPI(M)'s Bolpur MP Somnath Chatterjee moved the motion in the Lok Sabha. 'This is a constitutional obligation, not a political witch-hunt. We are seeking to maintain the dignity of the highest judiciary. Let it be known to the nation and to the world that this House, this Parliament, can rise to its responsibilities under the Constitution,' he said.
Acknowledging that MPs 'were not judges', Chatterjee said the House was called upon to act 'with objectivity and seriousness of judges'. 'If we fail today, we will be failing not only the Constitution but also the hopes of the people of this country who place trust in our institutions. My appeal once again to all my fellow Members is that the time has come when we must stand up for certain values and norms,' he said.
Lauding Ramaswami's counsel Kapil Sibal, who defended the Supreme Court judge in Parliament, Chatterjee said he hoped Ramaswami would resign. 'Yesterday, his counsel advocated very strongly that this House should not vote on this particular motion. His plea was: 'Please do not vote on this motion.' After the debate was over, I walked over to him and said: 'You made an excellent suggestion. Why do you not take it one step further and persuade your client to resign?''
Chatterjee concluded, saying, 'If we fail today, we will be failing not only the Constitution but also the hopes of the people of this country who place trust in our institutions.'
Supporting the motion, BJP's Chittorgarh MP Jaswant Singh said it was the first exercise where 'legislators were called upon to don a judicial role'. 'What we do or fail to do today will become archival material, to be referred to by successive generations of legislators. The fate of this motion is directly linked with the moral health of the nation … The motion of impeachment is a safeguard of the State. It restrains judicial tyranny without overawing the authority of the courts. I asked myself: Is this, on the findings of the Committee, sufficient to conclude misbehaviour? My answer is yes. Is it proven? Yes. Does it warrant removal? Yes. To reject this motion would be to condone misbehaviour in the judiciary; it would taint and enfeeble the nation,' he said.
The Janata Dal MP from Muzaffarpur, George Fernandes, said he hoped that the debate would be the' beginning of a cleansing process, in which we must uphold the rule of law, uphold the basic norms and values — especially if we want to combat the growing violence and corruption in this country'.
The Congress opposed the motion, with its MP Mani Shankar Aiyar saying the 108 members who moved the motion 'were not a cross-section of the House'. 'They were drawn from parties that numerically did not constitute a majority … That is perfectly legal, maybe even moral, but this must be borne in mind … At a time when even my eleven-year-old daughter knew that the Ninth Lok Sabha was going to end, they decided to bring this issue forward as their electoral platform,' he said.
Claiming that the House was not even being given 16 hours to consider the matter, Aiyar said, 'Whether we pass this motion or reject it, we are doing great damage to our nation. We are paying for the sins of the dying days of the Ninth Lok Sabha.'
Another Congress MP, Debi Prasad Pal, questioned the legitimacy and transparency of the committee process.
The motion fell through after most Congress MPs abstained and it failed to get a two-thirds majority. Of the 401 MPs in the House, 205 abstained while 196 voted in favour of the motion.
The impeachment proceedings against Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court took place in the Rajya Sabha. Sen was accused of misappropriating funds in his role as a court-appointed receiver and of misleading the court even after his elevation to the Bench.
The Rajya Sabha took up the motion on August 17–18, 2011, following the findings of an inquiry committee headed by Justice B Sudershan Reddy, Justice Mukul Mudgal, and jurist Fali Nariman.
Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) moved the motion, saying it was 'not one questioning the integrity of the judiciary but against one judge who has been found to have indulged in conduct that constitutes the definition of misbehaviour'.
'It is a call of duty to correct any aberration that may lead to the undermining of this faith (in the judiciary). Let us convey not only to the people of India but to the people of the world that the Indian Parliament is a sacred temple — the perpetual residence of inviolable justice,' he said.
Then Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, spoke in support of the motion. 'The cheques can't lie; individuals can. This is a fit case for removal, and we must so make a recommendation to the President,' he said.
Saying he had come to seek justice on 'not only questions of law but also on questions of facts', Justice Sen defended himself in the House. 'The concept of presumption of innocence has now been reversed into a presumption of guilt … Even if you hold me guilty and remove me, I will still shout from the rooftops that I did not misappropriate the money … This entire matter is being driven by assumptions and political will, not law or facts,' he said.
In reply, Jaitley said, 'This misappropriation will hang like an albatross around your neck even when you shout from rooftops that you're innocent … Can we afford to have a judge whose conduct smacks of this kind of proven misconduct?'
The Upper House passed the motion and Justice Sen became the first sitting judge to have an impeachment motion against him passed by a House of Parliament. He subsequently resigned and then Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid told the Lok Sabha on September 5, 2011, that further discussion on the matter was not required and the Lower House did not get to discuss or vote on the matter.
More than 50 Rajya Sabha MPs signed a motion seeking the removal of Justice S K Gangele of the Madhya Pradesh High Court over charges of sexual harassment by a former district and sessions judge in Gwalior. The motion was dropped after an inquiry committee did not find enough material against the judge.
Over 50 Rajya Sabha MPs signed a motion to impeach Justice Reddy of the High Court for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over charges of physically assaulting a judge of a lower court. However, the motion was dropped after nine MPs withdrew, and it fell short of the minimum 50 MPs required to introduce the motion.
Opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha, including the Congress, (then undivided) NCP, SP, BSP, and CPI(M), submitted the motion to impeach Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in April 2018, alleging 'misbehaviour' and 'incapacity'. On April 23 that year, the then Rajya Sabha chairman, M Venkaiah Naidu, rejected the motion saying that the charges pertained to internal court administration and did not amount to constitutional 'misbehaviour'.