New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, on Tuesday, announced the formation of a three-member committee to probe the charges against Justice Yashwant Varma of the Allahabad High Court, setting the stage for his impeachment.
Justice Varma has been under scrutiny since March, when sacks of charred currency were recovered from his residence following a fire. He was then a judge of the Delhi High Court. After the incident, he was stripped of judicial work and repatriated to his parent Allahabad High Court.
“Justice Arvind Kumar of the Supreme Court, Madras High Court Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Srivastava, and jurist B V Acharya from Karnataka will be the panel’s members,” Birla announced, accepting the notice for impeachment.
Birla noted that wads of cash were found at Justice Varma’s official residence and that the then Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna formed an in-house Supreme Court panel to look into it. The in-house inquiry concluded with a finding of “strong inferential evidence” linking Justice Varma to the incident. The May 3 report of the in-house panel was forwarded to the President and Prime Minister.
The Lok Sabha Speaker referred to the Constitution’s Article 124, which outlines the composition of the Supreme Court, the appointment, and the process for the removal of judges.
As many as 146 Lok Sabha lawmakers have signed the impeachment notice. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, BJP members Anurag Thakur, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, and P P Chaudhary were among the signatories of the Lok Sabha notice. Not less than 100 lawmakers should sign a motion to remove a judge.
The panel will get time until the winter session to submit its report. The impeachment process is expected to be taken up during the next session.
Justice Varma has the option to resign at any stage and avoid the impeachment. In September 2011, Calcutta high court judge Soumitra Sen resigned a day before his impeachment proceedings.
In 1993, the Lok Sabha debated the proposal to impeach Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court V Ramaswamy. The motion failed as a requisite number of lawmakers did not vote.
The Supreme Court had, on Thursday, dismissed Justice Varma’s petition challenging the legality and findings of the in-house judicial inquiry. It rejected Justice Varma’s contention that such inquiries create a parallel mechanism outside Articles 124 and 217 of the Constitution, which lay down the procedure for the removal of judges.
The judgment cleared the way for parliamentary proceedings, which began with 145 Lok Sabha and 63 Rajya Sabha lawmakers submitting notices in Parliament for his removal on July 21, the opening day of the monsoon session. Varma has denied all wrongdoing, terming the case a conspiracy.
