Opposition leaders have condemned the dismissal of an impeachment notice against CEC Gyanesh Kumar. (Express Photo)
Uniting on the issue of rejection of notice to impeach Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the Opposition on Wednesday said that the decision undermines constitutional processes and weakens accountability in a democracy.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Congress MP Abhishek Singhvi, along with other Opposition leaders, said the move to reject the notice at a preliminary stage amounted to “strangulating” the entire impeachment mechanism envisaged in the Constitution.
He was accompanied by TMC leaders Derek O’Brien and Sagarika Ghose, RJD’s Manoj Jha, AAP’s Sandeep Pathak, DMK’s Yogesh and NCP-SP’s Rajeev Jha.
“When accountability is adjourned intelligently, then democracy itself stands impeached,” Singhvi said.
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The Congress MP said that the presiding officers of Parliament had committed a “fundamental conceptual error” by collapsing a multi-stage constitutional process into a single decision at the admission stage.
He said the Constitution provides for a detailed procedure involving an initial admission, the formation of a judicial committee, framing of charges, submission of a report, parliamentary discussion and finally, a decision.
“By rejecting the motion at the very first stage, you effectively eliminate all subsequent stages, including scrutiny by an independent committee and Parliament’s collective wisdom,” Singhvi said.
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He also contended that the presiding officer exceeded the scope of a prima-facie assessment by delving into the merits of the allegations.
“You cannot conduct a mini trial at the threshold. That defeats the very architecture of the Constitution,” he said.
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