Even Without CJI Recommendation, Parliament Can Initiate Process To Remove Judge: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday said report or no report, recommendation or no recommendation, whatever is the case, the Parliament’s power to initiate proceedings for removal of a judge for alleged misbehaviour or incapacity remains unfettered.

A bench comprising justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih said it is inclined to the view that it is not the law that once the committee constituted by the CJI records in its report that the conduct of the judge under probe warrants initiation of proceedings for his removal and the CJI, in turn, upon accepting such report furnishes the same together with his recommendation, if any, to the president and the prime minister, that would invariably in all cases result in initiation of proceedings under Article 124(4) and (5) of the Constitution (for Supreme Court judges) and Articles 217 and 218 read with Article 124 (for high court judges) and the inquiry under the Inquiry Act.

“Report or no report, recommendation or no recommendation, whatever is the case, the Parliament’s power to initiate proceedings for removal of a Judge for alleged misbehaviour or incapacity remains unfettered”, said Justice Datta.

He added that even though there could be a case where good grounds for initiation of proceedings do exist, the Parliament may in its wisdom elect not to go ahead to initiate proceedings for removal.

The bench said contrarily, even if it is reported by the committee under the procedure that there exists any of the two situations [para 5(a) or 5(c)] and the CJI, accepting such report, does not make any recommendation, nothing prevents the Parliament to initiate proceedings for removal if for reasons aliunde it considers necessary so to do.

The bench said if the Parliament, despite strong indication of a judge either having indulged in misbehaviour or suffering from incapacity, does not initiate any proceedings for removal, no proceeding in a judicial forum would perhaps lie for activating the Parliament to have such judge removed from office.

The apex court made these observations, while dealing with a contention that the in-house procedure established by the apex court to probe the complaints against judges was a parallel and extra-constitutional mechanism.

The apex court dismissed a plea by Allahabad High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma plea seeking invalidation of a report by an in-house inquiry panel, which found him guilty of misconduct in the cash discovery row.

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