Indicating that the Congress had gone slow in its bid to impeach Supreme Court Chief Justice Dipak Misra, senior Congress leader and former law minister Kapil Sibal said an impeachment motion is not “instant coffee”.
He said the Opposition is not worried about the numbers required for moving such a motion, and all options are open before it to deal with the developments in judiciary.
“This is not some instant coffee,” he said and added: “We are dealing with an institution and it will be a very sad day if the Opposition has to take that step...it will be with very heavy heart. But that does not mean that the Opposition has foreclosed that option (of impeachment). We are as concerned about the independence of the judiciary as anybody else we want to protect the institution,” Sibal told reporters on Thursday.
On Justice Kurian Joseph’s reported missive to fellow judges in the apex court on the problems in judiciary, Sibal said the “distinguished judge” had acted to ensure that the Supreme Court acts “collectively to protect its own independence”. Sibal, a senior Supreme Court lawyer himself, said he did not want to comment on an internal issue of the court, he said the Court itself will deal with it.
He said the judiciary is at its nadir today. “The fact that one sitting judge, who is one of the senior-most and part of the collegium has to write to all the judges, and say you [ask them to] form a bench of seven distinguished senior-most judges to ensure that our recommendations are implemented, especially in the context of (Uttarakhand) Chief Justice KM Joseph, and (senior counsel in Supreme Court) Indu Malhotra, and the fact that the judiciary is not taking action on it, is a matter of grave concern,” Sibal said and added that if there is any attempt to block that recommendation, the Chief Justice of India and the senior most Judges must not only resist it but ensure that their recommendation is implemented.