SC Rejects Justice Yashwant Varma's Plea Against Lok Sabha Panel in Impeachment Motion
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has on Friday (January 16) rejected Allahabad high court judge Justice Yashwant Varma’s plea challenging the Lok Sabha speaker’s decision to form a committee in the impeachment motion moved against him in connection with the discovery of unaccounted cash currencies at his official residence, LiveLaw reported.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and S.C. Sharma observed that the speaker committed “no illegality in constituting the committee”, and that Justice Varma “is not entitled to any relief”.
Dismissing the plea, the bench said that “no interference is called for” by the court.
Reserving the order in the matter on January 8, Justice Datta had said that “there is some infirmity” in the Lok Sabha Speaker’s constitution of the inquiry committee, but questioned if it “would go to such an extent that this entire committee has to be quashed.”
The bench had further noted, “We have to balance the rights of the judge to be proceeded against as well as the members who have an independent right under the law to move a motion and get it admitted.”
The main point raised in Justice Varma’s petition is that despite impeachment notices being moved in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on the same day (July 21), Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla proceeded to constitute the committee on his own, without awaiting the Rajya Sabha chairman's decision or holding the mandatory joint consultation prescribed by law. This, he argued, is contrary to Section 3(2) of the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.
Appearing for Justice Varma, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi had argued that if motions are moved simultaneously in both the Houses, then a committee can be formed only jointly by the Lok Sabha speaker and the Rajya Sabha chairman.
Rohatgi also said that the motion in the Rajya Sabha was rejected by the deputy chairman only on August 11 but the committee was formed on August 12 by the Lok Sabha speaker. He added that after one house rejected the motion, the Lok Sabha speaker could not have constituted the committee.
Justice Verma was a Delhi high court judge when the controversy erupted over the discovery of a large bundles of cash from an outhouse damaged by fire at his official residence.
On March 20, the SC collegium proposed that Justice Varma be transferred to Allahabad.
A three-judge panel set up subsequently by the Supreme Court by then Chief Justice Sanjeev Khanna, later found that the judge was responsible for “misconduct”, and forwarded this report to the President and Prime Minister for further action.
On July 21, 2025, two separate motions were moved in the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha seeking the impeachment of Justice Varma.
The Lok Sabha speaker then appointed a three-member committee – comprising Justice Arvind Kumar of the Supreme Court, Madras high court chief justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava, and senior advocate B.V. Acharya of the Karnataka high court – under the Judges (Inquiry) Act to investigate the allegations.
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