Arun Jaitley accuses Congress of using impeachment as a political tool

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today accused the Congress party of trivialising the power of impeachment and using it as a political tool.

In an unprecedented step, Congress and six other opposition parties today moved a notice for the impeachment of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, accusing him of five counts of "misbehaviour" and "misusing" authority.

The impeachment notice comes a day after the Supreme Court rejected a bunch of petitions seeking an independent probe into the death of Judge B H Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case.

Hours after the Opposition move, Jaitley hit back in a scathing Facebook post saying the "Congress Party and its friends have started using impeachment as a political tool".

The senior BJP leader said the 114 page judgement in the Judge Loya death case authored by Justice D Y Chandrachud on behalf of the three Judge Bench of the Supreme Court "exposes every fact of the conspiracy" to generate falsehood as propaganda in the public and political space.

He further said Amit Shah (now BJP President) had no role in Sohrabuddin Case and it was an alleged encounter executed by some central agencies through the State Police. 

Stressing that trivialising the use of power of impeachment is a "dangerous event", he said the move is an attempt to "intimidate" a Judge and send a message to other Judges, "that if you don't agree with us, fifty MP's are enough for a revenge action".

Referring to the judgement in Loya death case, Jaitley said never ever so blatantly in the past have national political parties, a few retired judges and some senior lawyers "so closely identified themselves with the generation of falsehood that they almost come out as conspirators".

In the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, BJP President Amit Shah along with Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria, Rajasthan-based businessman Vimal Patni, former Gujarat police chief P C Pande, Additional Director General of Police Geeta Johri and Gujarat police officers Abhay Chudasama and N K Amin have already been discharged.

Several accused, including police personnel, are currently facing trial for their involvement in the alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and their associate Tulsiram Prajapati in Gujarat in November 2005.

The case was later transferred to CBI and the trial shifted to Mumbai.

Read Jaitley's full blog post here

(With PTI inputs)