Facing impeachment, CJI Dipak Misra to carry out his duties as usual

New Delhi: Facing heat after the Congress and six other parties submitted an impeachment notice to VP Venkaiah Naidu, it will be business as usual for Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra beginning this week.

Supreme Court sources have said that Justice Misra maintains that the removal motion against him, based on frivolous allegations, has been propped up for political considerations and to deter him from discharging his duties as the CJI, according to a report in The Times Of India.

In a list released by the Supreme Court’s registry on Saturday, the CJI, beginning April 23, will hear some important and contentious cases.

According to a Hindustan Times report, a five-judge bench led by Misra will continue to hear the Aadhar case on Tuesday. Around 35 petitions have been submitted which pose as a challenge to the government’s ambitious project.

Apart from this, the top court will also hear a petition in the Kathua rape case. The petition, by the father of the victim, seeks to transfer the case outside Jammu and Kashmir as he has expressed fears of not getting a free and fair trial.

The Ram Janma Bhoomi dispute will also be heard by a three-judge bench consisting of the CJI.

As per the SC registry, the contentious issue of the ban on the entry of women between 10 and 50 years of age in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple will also be heard by a five-member bench headed by Misra.

The same five-judge bench will also hear a legal question on whether a Parsi woman would lose her religious identity if she marries a man from a different religion.

The CJI is also set to hear, as part of a three-judge bench, a petition that seeks reading down of section 377 of the Indian Penal code that criminalises same-sex relations.