Mr. Vice-President, Sir, this is an important article of tremendous import in that it provides for the arrangement, the impeachment and the removal from office, of the President of the Indian Union. In any ordinary trial, in any criminal trial, the presiding officer of the tribunal is one who is expected to be impartial, and a man of the completes integrity. I hope that we in India shall not have any occasion to invoke the aid of this article, and that all our Presidents will be thoroughly constitutional and of impeachable integrity. But Sir, we have got to make provisions against human frailty and that is why we have got to incorporate an article of this nature in our Constitution. But it is very necessary, absolutely essential that when you proceed to impeach the President of the Indian Republic for violation of the Constitution, I say it is absolutely necessary that the officer presiding over such an investigation must be a man who is above party politics, and a man of the completest integrity and impartiality. In this context, Sir, the amendment moved by Mr. Karimuddin acquires some importance. The article as it stands says that when a change has been so preferred–I am referring to clause (3) of the article,–when a charge has been so preferred by either House of Parliament, the other House shall investigate the charge or cause the charge to be investigated. It is quite possible and probable that the other House may investigate the charge, or perhaps it may proceed to appoint another tribunal consisting of its own members and some others, to investigate the charge. But in either case, it is necessary that the Presiding officer of the House which is investigating the charge should not preside over the impeachment proceedings. Suppose, for instance, the Upper House prefers the charge and the Lower House investigates it. Then, what is the position? The Lower House is presided over by the Speaker. Do we intend that the Speaker of the House of the People shall preside over the impeachment proceedings? The Speaker is almost always a party man, and the President is being impeached for some violation consequent upon a conflict that might have arisen between him and the party in power. Naturally, therefore, the Speaker who is a member of the party in power cannot be expected to be impartial and of the completest integrity in this particular affair. Suppose the charge is being investigated by the Upper House after it has been preferred by the Lower House. As the article stands, the Vice-President will preside over the proceedings. But, Sir, man is after all a frail creature. The Vice-President may have at the back of his mind the idea that if the President is impeached and removed from office, he will be able to step into his shoes. The Vice-President, therefore, will be, more or less, an interested man, because, if the impeachment succeeds and the President goes out of office, the Chairman of the Council of State will be able to step into his shoes and become the President. He may be interested in seeing that the impeachment succeeds. So in either case, whether the Lower House presides over the proceedings of impeachment or the Upper House, the presiding officer of that House cannot be expected to be impartial and absolutely above party politics, or above party passions, and of the completest rectitude, in those proceedings. Therefore, it is very necessary that the Chief Justice of India should preside over the investigation of the charge preferred against the President. He must have the last word not merely upon the conduct of the trial but also on all matters such as admissibility of evidence and cognate matters. Here, I will, with your permission, Sir, quote from “The Constitutional History of the United States” by A. C. Mac Laughlin.
“When President Andrew Johnson was being tried before the Senate–the Chief Justice presiding–a similar question about the admissibility of evidence arose, and the Senate decided that the Presiding Officer might rule on the admissibility of evidence, and the ruling should stand, unless there was a division, in which case, the question should be passed on by the Senate itself.“