New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS) The Lok Sabha is likely to take up impeachment proceedings against Calcutta High Court Judge Soumitra Sen Monday as Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati is learnt to have recommended that the motion may be taken up despite Sen’s resignation.
The motion for removal of the judge has been included in the list of business of the Lok Sabha Monday.
Official sources said that Vahanvati has recommended that the impeachment motion against Justice Sen should proceed as per schedule in the Lok Sabha.
Sources said that the Attorney General’s opinion came after President Pratibha Patil’s office sent the faxed resignation letter of Justice Sen to the Law and Justice Department.
The faxed resignation letter did not carry Justice Sen’s ‘original signature’, according to sources in the President’s Office.
A Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson said that the signature on Justice Sen’s resignation letter – which was faxed to President Patil Thursday – has been found ‘not original’.
‘The signature in the faxed letter has been found not original. We are waiting for the hard copy of the letter to arrive and check the signature,’ Archana Datta, spokesperson of the president, told IANS here Friday.
‘Let the letter come. Any decision by the president will be only after that,’ she added.
As per procedure, both houses of parliament have to pass the motion in the same session, after which the address is sent to the president for removal from office of a Supreme Court or high court judge found guilty of misconduct.
The Rajya Sabha had Aug 18 adopted a motion for removal of Justice Sen with 189 members voting in favour and 16 against it.
Justice Sen announced his resignation in Kolkata Thursday through his lawyer.
He sent a copy of his resignation letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar too.
A union minister, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told IANS that the possibility of the Lok Sabha taking up motion for Sen’s removal would depend on the decision of the president.
‘The ball is in the president’s court. If the president accepts the resignation and the decision is notified, then he (Justice Sen) ceases to be a judge. There will be no need for a motion of his removal in the Lok Sabha then,’ the minister said, adding that impeachment motion will be carried if the resgination is rejected.
‘What the President’s Office informs we will move on that,’ he said.
Justice Sen is the first judge against whom any of the two houses of parliament has passed an impeachment motion. The first such case was of Justice V. Ramaswami of the Supreme Court in 1993 but the impeachment motion fell through in the Lok Sabha as the ruling Congress abstained.
A three-member committee constituted by Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari found the charges of financial irregularities against Sen to be correct.
Justice Sen, then an advocate, was held guilty of misappropriating Rs.33.23 lakh in a 1983 case, while he was appointed a receiver by the high court.
He denied the allegations during his hearing in the Rajya Sabha.
