Institute of Legal and Management Studies

The Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, today announced setting up a three-member committee under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, for inquiry against Justice Yashwant Varma over the discovery of unaccounted cash currencies at his official residence.

The members of the Committee are Justice Arvind Kumar of the Supreme Court, Justice M M Shrivastava, Chief Justice of Madras High Court and Vasudeva Acharya, Senior Advocate of the Karnataka High Court.

This comes after an impeachment motion to remove Justice Verma was submitted by 146 members of the Lok Sabha to the Lok Sabha Speaker.

As per the law, a judge can be removed from office under Articles 124 and 217 of the Constitution on grounds of "proved misbehaviour" or "incapacity". To initiate the proceedings, a notice of impeachment has to be sponsored by at least 100 Lok Sabha members or 50 Rajya Sabha members. The Presiding Officer (Speaker) will then verify the notice of impeachment, and if he decides to admit it, he has to then constitute a three-member Committee consisting of the CJI/Judge, CJ of the High Court and one distinguished jurist. The committee's work will be governed by the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.

If the Committee finds the allegation true in its report, the report is then tabled in the House for discussion and voting.

For Justice Varma to be impeached, a majority of not less than 2/3rd present and voting should agree to the removal of the judge.

The issue relates to the accidental discovery of a huge pile of currency notes at an outhouse of the official residence of Justice Varma, then a judge of the Delhi High Court, during a fire-fighting operation on March 14.

After the discovery led to a huge public controversy, the then CJI Sanjiv Khanna constituted an in-house inquiry committee of three judges- Justice Sheel Nagu (then Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court), Justice GS Sandhawalia (then Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court), and Justice Anu Sivaraman (Judge, Karnataka High Court). Justice Varma was repatriated to the Allahabad High Court, and judicial work was withdrawn from him pending the inquiry.

The committee submitted its report, prima facie finding Justice Varma's culpability, to CJI Khanna in May, which the CJI forwarded to the President and the Prime Minister for further action, after Justice Varma refused to heed the CJI's advice to resign.

Last week, the Supreme Court dismissed Justice Varma's petition challenging the in-house inquiry as well as the CJI's recommendation to remove him.