Allahabad HC quashes summons issued against Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: The Allahabad high court has quashed charges of sedition filed against finance minister Arun Jaitley for a blog post that stated that the Supreme Court decision to do away with the National Judicial Appointments Commission was “tyranny of the unelected”.

Justice Yashwant Varma quashed the case after hearing petitioner Ankit Goel — a judicial magistrate of the Mahoba sessions court — who alleged that Jaitley had violated Section 124 (A) of the Indian Penal Code and additional solicitor-general Maninder Singh, who told the court that the judge had misused his office as he had suo moto issued a notice after reading Jaitley’s article.

Jaitley said in his blog that NJAC was needed and the system of judges appointing judges in the collegium system should be done away with. He had termed the judgement a “tyranny of the unelected” as it went against the Parliament view that a NJAC should be established. Parliament had unanimously passed the NJAC bill. Singh maintained that Jaitley had merely expressed his disagreement with the verdict and cited the example of Justice J Chelameswar who had given a dissenting judgement in the case.