Why it is in news?

• Chief Justice of India (CJI) recommended the impeachment of Justice Shri Narayan Shukla, the eighth senior-most judge of the Allahabad High Court, following an adverse report about him by an in-house panel set up by the CJI.
• The CJI has set the process in motion with a letter to the Prime Minister for the impeachment of the judge.
• When the impeachment motion is moved in Parliament, an investigation is conducted.
• If the findings of guilt are confirmed, the impeachment motion will be put to vote for the removal of the judge by a majority.
• The move for a possible impeachment of Justice Shukla began with Allahabad High Chief Justice D.B. Bhosale withdrawing judicial duties from him from January 23, 2018.
• The trigger was a scathing report by the committee led by Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee.
• Justice Shukla joined the Allahabad High Court in 2005 and was set to retire on July 17, 2020.
• His orders in the cases of blacklisted private medical colleges in Lucknow had come under the scanner of the CJI Bench last year.

SC direction defied

• Chief Justice had expressed “shock” at an order passed by a Division Bench led by Justice Shukla on September 1, 2017, allowing the G.C.R.G. Memorial Trust, based in Lucknow, in defiance of a “graphically clear” restraining direction from the Supreme Court on August 28 to stop admissions for the academic session 2017-18.

Corrections to order

• he Supreme Court noted how Justice Shukla, on September 4, even made some corrections to the September 1 order.
• On November 23, CJI in a 14-page judgment, held that the Division Bench, led by Justice Shukla, had abandoned “the concept of judicial propriety” and transgressed judicial rules to “proceed on a path where it was not required to.”
• The CJI noted that such transgressions caused “institutional problems”.
• The Justice Banerjee Committee was formed shortly after this judgment on December 8.

Source

The Hindu