‘Flawed, bid to mar image’: Vice President’s removal notice junked

NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh on Thursday dismissed the notice submitted by the

INDIA bloc

for the removal of Vice-President

Jagdeep Dhankhar

on the ground that it did not meet the requirement of 14-day notice, while also observing that allegations against the RS chairman were “an act of impropriety, severely flawed, apparently drawn in haste to mar the reputation of incumbent vice president and aimed to damage the constitutional institution”.
“The gravity of this personally targeted notice, bereft of facts and aimed at securing publicity, makes its expose expedient, being misadventure in deliberate, trivialising and demeaning of the high constitutional office of vice-president of the largest democracy,” Harivansh said, adding a detailed order would follow. The fate of the notice, signed by 60 opposition members of Rajya Sabha and submitted on Dec 10, had always looked doubtful because of the 14-day notice requirement and the fact that the winter session concludes on Friday. Harivansh said “Article 67(b) peremptorily mandates ‘at least 14 days’ prior notice for any resolution contemplating the vice president’s removal”. He said the opposition submitted the notice despite being in “full knowledge of the situation” because it was “meant to set a narrative against the second highest constitutional office”.
Harivansh also ruled that “the prejudicial intent manifested through orchestration of a coordinated media campaign, including a televised press conference initiated by the LoP and the chief whip of Congress, on Dec 12, where AICC general secretary asserted that a no confidence has been moved and asked what action has been taken on it, there being no information available about it”.
This was an attempt to set afloat a narrative as if the authority was sitting over the notice of intention and thereby not discharging expectedly,” the ruling said. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh hit out at Dhankhar and said the chair’s ruling “takes liberties with facts – to put it midly”. Ramesh was referring to certain remarks attributed to him in the ruling by Harivansh.