Rajya Sabha holds judge guilty of graft

Agencies

New Delhi, 19 Augst 2011: In the first ever impeachment involving a sitting judge, Rajya Sabha on Thursday found Justice Soumitra Sen, 53, guilty of corruption. 

 

Justice Sen, a sitting judge of the  Calcutta High Court, could go down in history as the first judge to be removed if Lok Sabha gives its consent next week to the motion for his impeachment.

 

One-hundred-and-eighty-nine members of the Rajya Sabha voted in favour of the impeachment while only 17 voted against a motion that holds Sen guilty on three counts.

“I am extremely disappointed,” said Justice Sen after the Rajya Sabha verdict.

 

“In the discussions we have had in the past two days the misbehaviour of Mr Sen has been proved,” Communist Party of India MP Sitaram Yechury, who moved the impeachment motion on Wednesday, said before the vote.

 

Ram Jethmalani against Sen: 

Advising Rajya Sabha members not to get influenced by the glib-talk of Justice Sen, noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani said eloquence of a speaker has nothing to do with his morals.

 

“This man did not deserve to be a judge. Not only should this judge go, other judges who do such things should not remain for even one more day,” said Jethmalani, participating in the impeachment motion debate.

 

Jethamalani said, “Let us set a good precedent today, so that judges with similar bent of mind get a message that they cannot get away with such things.”

 

Vice President Hamid Ansari, who is also chairman of the Upper House said the motion held Sen guilty for “misappropriation of large sums of money, misrepresenting facts in regards to the misappropriation of money and misbehaviour”.

 

Similar case had fallen flat:

The only precedent for such a case was the attempted impeachment in 1993 of a Supreme Court justice, V Ramaswami, which fell through after failing to garner the support of enough lawmakers. Ramaswami later resigned.

 

Justice P D Dinakaran, Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court, against whom the Rajya Sabha Chairman had set up a judicial panel to enquire into allegations of corruption, had resigned on July 29 this year, before an impeachment could be initiated against him.