'Cong trying to run country through sponsored litigation'

New Delhi: Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday accused the Congress of running the country through courts based on "half-baked, false and sponsored litigations", alleging that it used the death of judge B H Loya as a political tool to settle scores.

His remarks came in the backdrop of Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu rejecting a notice by seven opposition parties led by Congress to impeach Chief Justice of India Dipak Mishra.

"The Congress, being defeated by the people repeatedly, can't run the country through corridors of courts based upon half-baked, false and sponsored litigations," he claimed.

He said the Congress' use of litigation was "directly proportionate" to the repeated reversals it was facing in elections.

"Under the patronage of the Congress, even the death of judge Loya, who died of a heart attack some four years ago, was used as a political tool to settle scores both inside and outside court," the minister alleged.

He claimed the "scathing observation" made by the top court "with pain and distress" on how judges of the Maharashtra lower courts, the Bombay High Court and even the Supreme Court "were sought to be presented in an uncomfortable light speaks volumes of efforts to compromise the dignity of the judiciary".