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In rare case, govt moves to sack corrupt HC judge
New Delhi: The Centre on Monday decided to move an impeachment motion against Calcutta high court judge Soumitra Sen following a recommendation from Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan seeking his dismissal for corrupt practices which had brought disrepute to the judiciary.
The government was forced to respond swiftly after the CJI’s recommendations were reported in the media on Monday. Law minister H R Bhardwaj said an impeachment motion would be placed before parliament, which is slated to meet on October 17. The impeachment will follow an inquiry to be set up by the presiding officers of the two Houses. In a letter to the PM dated August 4, the CJI had said a committee of senior judges had found Justice Sen to have misappropriated around Rs 24 lakh in a 1990s case in which he had been appointed the receiver. Then a Calcutta HC lawyer, he had deposited the money in his accounts but had given a “false explanation’’ to the HC about the funds having been invested.
Justice Sen faces dismissal unless he chooses to resign .....Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN New Delhi: Calcutta HC judge Soumitra Sen faces impeachment for misappropriating about Rs 24 lakh given to him as a receiver in a 1990s case. He had put the sum in his account and invested it in a venture that went into liquidation. The HC had passed an adverse order in April 2006, forcing Sen to deposit a sum of nearly Rs 58 lakh, which included interest on the money misappropriated. With the government moving the impeachment motion, Justice Sen is certain to be dismissed unless he chooses to resign—an option offered to him by the CJI but which he chose to turn down. It will be an unprecedented event as the previous impeachment—of Justice V Ramaswamy in 1991—had failed to pass the muster in the Lok Sabha due to the failure of the P V Narasimha Rao government to take a position on the issue.
The case of Justice Sen has also put the spotlight on corruption in the judiciary. There has been the incident of cash being delivered to the “wrong’’ judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court and the pension funds withdrawal scam involving the Ghaziabad judiciary.
Bhardwaj said, “Nobody can stop the impeachment motion as the CJI himself has recommended it. We have to go to parliament.’’ The CJI was virtually forced to write to the PM after Justice Sen refused to either resign or take voluntary retirement so as to escape the ignominy of being impeached.
Bhardwaj indicated that the impeachment motion was likely to be moved in the parliament’s session next month. He said the presiding officers of both Houses would set up a three-member investigation panel comprising either the CJI or another SC judge, a high court chief justice and an eminent jurist.
The statutory mechanism includes placing of the motion, its admission and then a reference to a peers committee, which will inquire into the allegations and frame a chargesheet against the judge. The charges will be debated before being put for passage before each House.
The cumbersome process of getting signatures of 100 MPs of the Lok Sabha or 50 MPs of the Rajya Sabha, which is mandatory for initiating an impeachment motion against a sitting high court or SC judge, may not be required in this case as it will be a government motion.
Senior advocate Arun Jaitley, during whose tenure as law minister Justice Sen was appointed to the Calcutta HC in 2003, said, “We in the government have a very marginal role to play in the appointment of judges. The names come in bulk from the Chief Justice, who recommends them following the selection process involving the collegium. In India, it is judges who appoint judges. It prima facie appears to be a clear case of impeachment and the government, after initiating the process, will have to take recourse to the the statutory parliamentary mechanism.’’
Though Justice Sen returned the money, the three-judge panel noted in its February 6, 2008, report to the CJI that “mere monetary recompense under the compulsion of judicial order does not obliterate the breach of trust and misappropriation of the receiver’s funds for his personal gain’’. The committee comprising chief justice of the Madras HC Justice A P Shah, CJ of the MP HC Justice A K Patnaik and Rajasthan HC judge Justice R M Lodha, said, “The conduct of Soumitra Sen has brought disrepute to the high judicial office and dishonour to the institution of judiciary, undermining the faith and confidence reposed by the public in the administration of justice.’’
On March 16, the SC collegium comprising the CJI and two seniormost judges, Justices B N Agrawal and Ashok Bhan, gave a personal hearing to the 50-year-old Justice Sen, who has been sitting idle at the HC for over a year without being assigned any work. During the hearing, they reiterated the earlier advice—resign or take voluntary retirement before April 2. But Justice Sen, in his letter on March 26, 2008, “expressed his inability to tender resignation or seek voluntary retirement’’.
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