Impeachment Notice Against Justice Yadav Secures Required MP Signatures: Report

New Delhi: At least 50 MPs have confirmed signing the impeachment notice against Allahabad high court judge Justice Shekhar Yadav, meeting the threshold required for his removal.

The notice was presented by 54 MPs to the Rajya Sabha secretariat on December 13 last year. However, the secretariat found discrepancies in nine signatures and launched a verification process to confirm the notice’s signatories.

According to Rajya Sabha sources cited by the Indian Express, only 44 MPs had confirmed their signatures to the secretariat via phone call or email so far.

The remaining MPs are Kapil Sibal, P. Chidambaram, Sushmita Dev, Sanjeev Arora, Jose K. Mani, Faiyaz Ahmed, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, G.C. Chandrasekhar, Raghav Chadha and N.R. Elango. Of these, six have confirmed signing the notice to the Indian Express.

Senior advocate and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Kapil Sibal said, “I met him [Jagdeep Dhankar] several times, he never asked me about the signature. I do not know which email ID they have sent the mail to. I am the one who presented the notice to him with the signatures.” 

Sibal said if the Rajya Sabha chairman was unable to confirm the signatures, then he should reject the notice so that the Supreme Court could be approached.

Dhankar has not rejected the notice as there is no timeframe for deciding on the notice submitted under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968. According to the Act, 50 MPs of the Rajya Sabha or 100 MPs of the Lok Sabha are required to move ahead with the notice. 

Chidambaram too denied being contacted for verification by the secretariat while Chandrasekhar said he had already completed the verification over the phone. 

MPs Mani and Bhattacharya told the paper that they would be verifying their signatures soon. AAP MP Sanjeev Arora said that he was occupied with bypolls in Ludhiana, when contacted about the matter. According to the report, Chaddha had requested a meeting with Dhankar after being contacted for verification. 

The impeachment notice came in response to Justice Yadav’s speech at a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) event on December 8 last year, when he had said, “I have no hesitation in saying that this is Hindustan… and the country will run according to the majority who live in Hindustan.”

“You have a misconception that if a law (UCC) is brought in, it will be against your Shariyat, your Islam and your Quran… But I want to say one more thing… Whether it is your personal law, our Hindu law, your Quran or whether it is our Gita, as I said we have addressed the ills (buraiyan) in our practices,” he said, adding that practices like untouchability, sati, jauhar and female foeticide had been addressed. “Then why are you not doing away with… that while your first wife is there… you can have three wives… without her consent… that is not acceptable.”

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