In the upper chamber of Indian Parliament, Justice Soumitra Sen of Kolkata High Court was found guilty of misappropriation of Rs.33.23 lakhs when he was appointed receiver by the High Court in 1883.
Upper House Chairman (Vice-President of India) had appointed a three-member committee to find out if the allegation of financial irregularities was correct and on receipt of its affirmative report, had admitted the motion of impeachment against Sen. On August 18, the motion was adopted by the Upper house with 189 members voting for impeachment as against only 16 dissenting.
The legitimate course of the motion thereafter was its adoption or rejection in the Lower House of the Parliament and therefore the Loksabha had listed it for discussion and decision on September 5.
Surprisingly, the legitimate step of the Lower House was preempted by the President when she did not reject the resignation letter of Justice Sen sent to her not in handwritten form but by fax and ultimately accepted, even though that was meant to make the Loksabha abort the Constitutional task that the sovereign House was occupied with.
The preceding article on this subject was written in this context.
But, the sovereign House has magnanimously or mistakenly allowed the motion of impeachment die in its lap under assumption that the object of impeachment no more exists as a Judge to be removed.
The President’s wrongful action has given birth to this assumption. And the constitution’s only provision against the Judges of misconduct has been thrown into the labyrinth of unfathomable peculiarities of Indian Parliament.