Justice Soumitra Sen to escape impeachment

NEW DELHI: Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court appears to have succeeded in avoiding impeachment with his resignation reaching President Pratibha Patil today and rendering the removal proceedings in Lok Sabha infructuous.

Any doubts about the veracity of his resignation, which was faxed to Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday, were removed with the original handwritten letter under his signature being delivered to the President's office this morning.

Justice Sen's impeachment is on the Lok Sabha schedule for Monday but constitutional experts said tonight that the resignation had rendered impeachment proceedings infructuous. The Rajya Sabha had impeached him last month.

Highly placed sources confirmed tonight that the proceedings in the lower house may now be dropped enabling the judge to avoid the ignominy of being the first judicial officer to be impeached by Parliament.