New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday accused the Congress of fishing in troubled waters and adopting a fringe position over the issue of impeachment of the Chief Justice of India which he said will hurt immediately the party in the Karnataka elections.
Two Congress lawmakers on Tuesday withdrew their plea in the Supreme Court challenging rejection of the impeachment notice against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra by Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.
“Finding a divided court, the Congress wanted to fish in troubled waters. If the motion for impeachment was unsustainable, the writ petition challenging the order of the Chairman, Rajya Sabha, was unarguable,” Jaitley wrote in a Facebook post titled “The Impeachment Fiasco – Another Example of Congress Adopting a Fringe Position”
Jaitley said the rulings of the Chair on whether to admit a motion or otherwise, are not subject to judicial review.
“But wanting to fish in troubled waters”, he said the Congress conceived of a strategy to “chose 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 Party was looking for a friendly pitch to bowl on,” said Jaitley, who himself is an eminent lawyer.
He also wondered whether it is right for a national party to deviate from the mainstream and take such fringe position?
“This in reality is the price which each Congressman will pay because its leader has decided that fringe position are better than the mainstream one. The Congressmen in Karnataka will be the immediate victim,” he said. DC
