New Delhi:A high voltage unfolded on Tuesday at the Supreme Court when Congress leaders represented by senior lawyer and party leader KapilSibal withdrew their petition challenging RajyaSabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu’s rejection of a notice for a motion seeking removal of the Chief Justice of India.

The lawmakers on Tuesday questioned the process by which a five-judge Constitution bench had been set up to hear their appeal -- through an administrative order, presumably issued by the Chief Justice, and not a judicial reference -- and seemed to hint at impropriety in the CJI constituting a bench to hear an appeal involving his future.

The lawmakers said they would prefer to challenge the administrative order first than argue the merits of the case, and irked at the bench’s reluctance to share the order with them, withdrew their appeal.

Political analysts said the Congress may have achieved its objective of keeping the issue alive despite withdrawing the appeal, and the court, by refusing to share the administrative order, had only muddied the waters. “The petition is dismissed as withdrawn,” said the bench headed by Justice AK Sikri after hearing the petitioners’ counsel, senior advocate Sibal and Attorney General KK Venugopal who appeared for the RajyaSabha chairman. The bench acknowledged the situation was unprecedented but declined to share details of the order.

Petitions are rarely listed directly before a Constitution bench. They are first heard by a regular bench of two judges and then referred by it to the Chief Justice for constituting an appropriate bench. Still, as mentioned by Venugopal during the proceedings in the court on Tuesday, there is a precedent that suggests otherwise. A 2005 judgment in the case of Central Board of DawoodiBohra Community versus State of Maharashtra , held that the Chief Justice of India could place any matter for hearing before any particular bench of any strength.