New Delhi: Parliamentarians have set the ball rolling for removal of Justice Yashwant Varma, accused of possessing unaccounted for cash during his tenure in the Delhi High Court. The judge has been transferred to the Allahabad High Court since, and relieved of all judicial responsibilities.
The judge got into trouble after wads of burnt currency notes were allegedly found in a storeroom in his bungalow in New Delhi earlier this year. The Supreme Court took cognizance of the matter and conducted an in-house probe that found Justice Varma guilty. Copies of the report were then submitted to the President and the Prime Minister for necessary action.
On Monday, a bipartisan delegation submitted a notice, bearing the signatures of 145 Lok Sabha members, seeking the removal of Justice Varma under Articles 124, 217 and 218 of the Constitution to Speaker Om Birla.
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, BJP leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad and Anurag Thakur, NCP-SP leader Supriya Sule, Congress leaders K C Venugopal and K Suresh, DMK leader T R Baalu, RSP member N K Premachandran and IUML member E T Mohammed Basheer were among the signatories.
Sixty-three members of the Rajya Sabha submitted a similar notice to chairman Jagdeep Dhankar. The signatories were Opposition MPs.
“Sixty-three opposition MPs, including those from AAP and INDI Alliance parties, have given a notice to the Rajya Sabha Chairman for removal of Justice Varma,” Congress member Syed Naseer Hussain said.
Both notices are for moving a motion to remove Justice Varma.
“Today 63 Rajya Sabha MPs belonging to various Opposition parties submitted a notice of motion to the Chairman, Rajya Sabha, for the removal of Justice Yashwant Varma under the Judges {Inquiry} Act, 1968. A similar motion for the removal of Justice Shekhar Yadav had been submitted to the Chairman Rajya Sabha way back on Dec 13, 2024,” Congress leaders and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh said.
A notice for the removal of a judge has to be signed by not less than 100 members in the Lok Sabha and 50 in the Rajya Sabha. The motion can either be accepted or rejected by the Speaker or Chairman.
The Judges (Inquiry) Act says that when notices of a motion are submitted on the same day in both the Houses of Parliament, a committee to examine the charges levelled against the judge will be constituted by the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairman. No committee can be constituted unless the motion has been admitted in both Houses.
The committee shall comprise a senior judge of the Supreme Court, a sitting Chief Justice of a High Court and a distinguished jurist. It is to probe the charges levelled against a judge and come out with a report in three months.
The inquiry report is then tabled in Parliament, followed by a discussion in both Houses after which voting is held on the motion for the removal of a judge.