Sibal slams RS chairman Dhankhar's 'inaction' on impeachment notice against Justice Yadav

New Delhi: Senior Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Tuesday found fault with Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar for not taking action on an impeachment notice against Allahabad High Court Judge Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav for his “entirely communal” remarks even after six months while accusing the government of attempting to save him.

Sibal alleged that there was “no forward movement” on their notice submitted on December 13 last year seeking to impeach Justice Yadav and it is “very unfortunate” that the person who is sitting on the constitutional post and second in protocol does not fulfil Constitutional obligations in six months.

He claimed that there appears to be a plan to stretch the procedure so that Justice Yadav gets time to retire next year without facing the impeachment motion and that is why the signatures in the notice submitted by 55 MPs are not being verified by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. Dhankhar told the Rajya Sabha earlier this year the Secretariat was verifying the signatures and it has not got a response from some MPs.

He told reporters that the letter by the Rajya Sabha Secretary General to the Supreme Court asking it not to go ahead with an in-house inquiry against Yadav as a petition was pending against him before the Upper House smacks of “discrimination” as it did not do so in the case of Justice Yashwant Varma.

“I want to ask those who are sitting on constitutional posts, their responsibility is to only verify whether signatures are there or not, should that take six months? Another question that arises is whether this government is trying to protect Justice Yadav...Why did you not write a letter over in-house inquiry against Justice Varma?” he said.

He claimed that either no action will be taken on the notice or they would reject a few signatures in the impeachment notice and reject it so that they are forced to the Supreme Court. It would take time while ensuring that Justice Yadav retires in 2026.

Justice Yadav is accused of hate speech and incitement to communal disharmony, targeting minorities by making disparaging comments against them and entering into public debate and endorsed views on political matters in violation of the Restatement of Values of Judicial Life-1997. He said India should function according to the wishes of the majority.

Sibal claimed that Dhankhar had intervened to stop the Supreme Court's in-house proceedings in Justice Yadav's case when the notice was not even admitted but did not do anything like that in Justice Varma’s case.

“I don't understand on what basis this happened? Should…write such a letter to the CJI? The in-house procedure is SC's own, it has no connection with the impeachment motion. Till now impeachment motion has not even been admitted, it has been six months and only signatures are being verified,” he said.