Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu Monday rejected the impeachment motion against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra by seven opposition parties.
On Sunday, the Vice-President had cut short his visit to Hyderabad and returned to the national capital to set in motion the process of consultations after an impeachment notice was filed against the CJI.
According to sources, Naidu held deliberations with a number of constitutional and legal experts, including Attorney General K K Venugopal.
He also spoke to Subhash Kashyap, former secretary general of the Lok Sabha, PK Malhotra, former law secretary, Sanjay Singh, former legislative secretary and senior officials of the Rajya Sabha secretariat. He is also likely to meet former Supreme Court judge Sudarshan Reddy, sources said.
They also said that Naidu continued with the discussions till late in the evening and also spoke to K Parasaran, who was the attorney general during the Congress governments led by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and was also a member to the Upper House nominated by the party.
This comes after Congress and six other opposition parties on Friday moved a notice for the impeachment of CJI Dipak Misra, accusing him of five counts of“misbehaviour” and “misusing” authority.
The opposition parties had met Naidu and handed over the notice for the impeachment with signatures of 64 MPs of the Upper House.
The MPs who signed the notice belong to the Congress, the NCP, the CPI (M) and CPI, the SP, the BSP and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). The leaders of these parties earlier met in Parliament and gave the final shape to the notice for impeachment.
