New Delhi [India], December 12 (ANI): Fifty-six former judges on Friday issued an open letter denouncing the impeachment notice against Madras High Court Judge Justice G.R. Swaminathan, which was initiated by opposition MPs in Parliament. The former judges described the move as a “brazen attempt” to intimidate judges who do not conform to the ideological or political expectations of certain groups.
In their statement, the former judges said, “We, the former Judges of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and former Chief Justices and Judges of the Hon’ble High Courts, take serious exception to the attempt being made by certain Members of Parliament and other senior advocates to impeach Hon’ble Justice G.R. Swaminathan of the Madras High Court. This is a brazen attempt to browbeat judges who do not fall in line with the ideological and political expectations of a particular section of society. If such an attempt is permitted to proceed, it would cut at the very roots of our democracy and the independence of the judiciary. Even if the reasons mentioned by the signatory Member(s) of Parliament are taken at face value, they are wholly inadequate to justify resorting to such a rare, exceptional and serious constitutional measure as impeachment.”
The statement warned that attempting to impeach a judge over an alleged verdict threatens judicial independence. “The very purpose of the impeachment mechanism is to uphold the integrity of the judiciary, not to convert it into a tool of arm-twisting, signalling and retaliation. To wield the threat of removal as a means of compelling judges to conform to political expectations is to turn a constitutional safeguard into an instrument of intimidation. Such an approach is anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, and an anathema to the rule of law. The present attempt to impeach a sitting High Court judge for discharging his judicial duty is, therefore, not an isolated episode but part of a continuing assault on the dignity and independence of the judicial institution itself. Today, the target may be one judge; tomorrow, it will be the institution as a whole,” they added.
The former judges called upon Members of Parliament, the Bar, civil society, and citizens to denounce the move, asserting that judges must remain accountable to their oath and the Constitution of India, not political pressures. “In a Republic governed by the rule of law, judgments are tested by appeals and legal critique, and not by threats of impeachment for political nonconformity,” the statement said.
The impeachment notice follows Justice Swaminathan’s directive in a petition filed by a right-wing activist, instructing state authorities to light the lamp at a hilltop temple—a practice that government officials argued violated the longstanding tradition of lighting the lamp at the nearby Deepa Mandapam.
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