File Picture Courtesy : The Financial Express
Launching a scathing attack Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has hit out at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying his party was acting like a “fringe” on mainstream issues like impeachment motion against the Chief Justice as it wanted to do “forum shopping” on the issue and retreated when it failed. He took on the Congress in his tweets
Congress Party’s latest misadventure against the judiciary has been the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice of India was wholly misconceived. It is poorly drafted and lacked in substance.
— Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) May 8, 2018
Hours after two Congress MPs withdrew their petition in the Supreme Court challenging the rejection of the impeachment motion by Rajya Sabha Chairman, he referred to the notice of the motion against Chief Justice Dipak Misra by parties led by Congress and said many of its traditional allies were not willing to take on this confrontation with the judiciary.
In a Facebook post, the Finance Minister described the impeachment attempt as “wholly misconceived, poorly drafted and lacking in substance”.
“If the motion for impeachment was unsustainable, the writ petition challenging the order of the Chairman, Rajya Sabha, was unarguable,” Jaitley said, adding that the rejection of a motion by the Speaker or the Chairman is a part of the legislative process and is not subject to judicial review.
“But wanting to fish in troubled waters, the Congress conceived of a strategy to choose a court of its choice for mentioning for constitution of the bench to hear the matter so that an unarguable matter could be arguable before a more receptive court. The Congress was looking for a friendly pitch to bowl on,” Jaitley said.
