April 25, 2024

Even as the opposition parties ready to take the impeachment battle to the Supreme Court after the rejection of their notice by Vice-President Naidu, a peculiar situation is set to arise. The judge sought to be impeached is the Chief Justice. He is the master of the roster and he has the power to assign cases to various benches. But since the case is against him, there is a conflict of interest.

The Telegraph has cited Santosh Hegde and other experts to say that the CJI will have to recuse himself from assigning this case. He will also have to make sure that he is not part of the bench that hears this case. But to keep things in balance and avoid total conflict of interest, the experts have also pointed out that since the impeachment notice drew heavily from the criticism leveled by four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, these judges would have to similarly recuse themselves from this case.

If the CJI and the four senior-most judges choose to recuse then President will have to select a bench and assign the case to that bench if the opposition does file a petition challenging Naidu’s rejection of the impeachment notice. It also means that the case will be heard by the so-called ‘junior’ judge or judges. It is a most sensitive matter and the main reason the four senior judges rebelled against the CJI was that they were not assigned sensitive cases. The irony now is that they have now made themselves ineligible to hear the most sensitive case that will come to the apex court in recent times!