MARGAO
Former Chairman of the Standing Committee of Rajya Sabha of Law and Justice and GPCC Chief Shantaram Naik has termed as ridiculous the ground cited by the Chairman to reject the impeachment of Chief Justice of India Deepak Mishra, saying most of the times members of Rajya Sabha give advance publicity to the contents of their notices submitted to the Rajya Sabha secretariat, more particularly, matters which are sensitive and involve public interest.
Addressing the media at his residence on Monday evening, Naik said that giving advance publicity to notices is a routine practice followed by now opposition parties as well as former opposition parties.
Naik said the duty of the Rajya Sabha Chairman was only to confirm whether 50 members have signed the notice and whether charges are such which are required to be gone into. “Thereafter, the Chairman should have admitted the notice and constituted a three member committee as required under section 3 of the Judges Inquiry Act, 1968”, he said, adding that it was improper for the
Chairman himself to assume the role of three member committee, which the Chairman conveniently avoided to constitute.
“A number of leaders of present ruling party, when they were in opposition left no opportunity to give advance publicity to their notices. Present Chairman , when he was one of the ministers in NDA Government, used to raise matters in the Rajya Sabha even without giving required notice. Directions issued by the Chairman cannot be equated to the Rules of procedure of the House, as direction itself says, “as per parliamentary practices and conventions”, Naik added.
