Above: Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal, CPI’s D Raja and lawyer KTS Tulsi at a press meet on CJI’s impeachment move (file pic)/Photo: UNI

A Supreme Court bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan on Monday (May 7) decided to list for the third week of July, an issue that talks about discussing in public forums the matter of judges’ impeachment.

A PIL has been filed for this by the organization In Pursuit Of Justice.

Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora submitted before the bench that discussing the judges’ impeachment in public forums is a serious issue and something should be done about this.

She said that the purpose if this petition was to settle this for all times to come. She said that in 2005 the law commission had made it an offence.

The bench asked the counsel: “Why do you feel that such times will come again and again? The Rajya Sabha also prohibits this. There is no urgency in this, right?”

To that the counsel said: “It does require my lord’s notice. The judges enquiry act takes place.”

At that Attorney General K K Venugopal said: “(The process of) impeachment has been conferred by parliament. The law commission is party here and asked to report.”

Arora said: “The touchstone is article 121 and in 2005 the law commission made it an offence to discuss it outside. But between 2005 and 2018 nothing has changed.”

The matter has been listed for the third week of July.

—India Legal Bureau