After over six hours of intense debate spread over two days, the house voted to recommend to President Pratibha Patil that Justice Sen be removed from office.

After the motion was passed by a voice vote, Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari

called for a division. The electronic voting system showed 189 members in favour or the motion and 17 against it. Of the 207 membes present in the house at the time, one abstained. The law required for the motion to be passed by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting.

Justice Sen is the first Indian judge against whom any of the two houses of parliament has passed an impeachment motion. The first such case was of Justice V Ramaswami of the Supreme Court in 1993 but the impeachment motion fell through in the Lok Sabha as the ruling Congress abstained.

Communist Party of India-Marxist member Sitaram Yechury had moved the motion against Justice Sen Wednesday. In a powerful speech, Yechury said the motion was against an individual judge and not against the institution of judiciary itself, which has been assigned a central position in the Indian constitution and is held in high esteem.

Sen, who spoke after Yechury, said he was defending his very existence. 'I am defending my life, very existence. Please decide in accordance with your conscience, applying your mind and on merit,' he added.

The will go to the Lok Sabha within a week. If it is approved by both the houses of parliament in the same session, the motion would go to the president, who can order the removal of the judge from office.

A three-member committee constituted by Ansari found the charges of financial irregularities against Sen to be correct. He is accused of misappropriating around Rs. 24 lakh in the 1990s when he was a lawyer and was appointed a receiver by the high court.

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Impeachment literally means being charged for misconduct. Under the constitution, judges, chief justices of the Supreme Court and high courts can only be removed after being charged with 'proven misconduct and incapacity' by the president of India on a motion adopted in both houses of parliament by two-thirds majority.

Each Rajya Sabha member will vote on the impeachment motion against Justice Sen, who is the first judge to face impeachment proceedings in the Rajya Sabha. Since the MPs will be acting as jury members they will face no whip.

The motion will be passed if at least 50 percent of the MPs are present and two-thirds of them vote for the motion. If the Rajya Sabha passes the motion, it will then go to the Lok Sabha within a week.

Justice Sen is accused of misappropriating around Rs.24 lakh in the 1990s when he was a lawyer and was appointed receiver by the Calcutta High Court.

The first case of impeachment of a judge in India was of Justice V. Ramaswami of the Supreme Court in May 1993. The motion fell through in the Lok Sabha as the ruling Congress abstained from voting. Kapil Sibal, a senior Supreme Court advocate, and now a cabinet minister, defended Justice Ramaswami before the bar of the Lok Sabha.

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