The requisition to impeach CJI Dipak Misra was to my mind grossly misconceived and set a dangerous precedent for the future of an independent judiciary in democratic India. The rejection of the motion itself by the Rajya Sabha chairman without any examination by a judicial committee sets an even more dangerous precedent.

The Constitution provides for impeachment of a judge of the Constitutional Courts, “on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.” These are not words to be taken lightly. The Supreme Court, reading a proposed impeachment motion, in the CK Daphtary v O P Gupta case, ruled that even if “a Judge has committed errors, even gross errors, (it) cannot amount to ‘misbehaviour’”.

In other words, a judge of the constitutional courts, is entitled to be wrong, or mistaken, and is protected from removal for ordinary errors of judgment. He can be removed by the impeachment process only if he is incapacitated or his ‘misbehaviour’ is of a variety that ought to debar him from judicial office.

While it may be relatively easy to collect the necessary signatures to begin the process of impeachment, the process thereafter has never culminated in an actual removal from office. When faced with a situation, where impeachment appears a certainty, the judge concerned has chosen to resign, rather than go through the entire ignominy.

But in Dipak Misra’s case, matters were unlikely to even reach the floor of Parliament, since he is anyway scheduled to retire in October this year. An impeachment motion, if admitted, had to be inquired into by a committee of judges, who need to submit a report before the actual motion of removal can be debated by Parliament. It was extremely unlikely that the entire process could have been completed within the six months that remain of his term.

Why then did the opposition parties, put the judiciary and the country in a position, where a cloud hung over the office, the incumbent and his decisions? Have his judicial or administrative decisions been so grossly wrong, or his personal conduct been such as to warrant a finding of “proved misbehaviour”?