India opposition to take chief justice dispute to top court

Bloomberg

India’s opposition parties have vowed to take their controversial bid to initiate an impeachment motion against the country’s chief justice to the Supreme Court.
Led by the Congress Party, the opposition alliance vowed to challenge vice president M. Venkaiah Naidu’s decision to reject their motion to impeach Chief Justice Dipak Misra over allegations that he misused his authority to influence the outcome of politically-sensitive cases.
Naidu, who is also the chairman of the upper house of parliament and served as a cabinet minister under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rejected the opposition’s motion earlier on Monday, describing the allegations against Misra neither “tenable nor admissible.”
“It seems this government is very keen that this must not be allowed to be inquired into,” Kapil Sibal, a senior leader of the Congress party, said at a press conference in New Delhi, describing Naidu’s order as illegal. “We will move a petition in the Supreme Court challenging this order.”
Lawmakers from seven opposition parties announced they were trying to impeach Misra for allegedly assigning sensitive cases to particular judges “with the likely intent to influence the outcome”. India Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the opposition was using the impeachment process as a “political tool”.