Opinion divided on the impeachment of Justice Yashwant Varma

An impeachment motion is likely to be moved in the monsoon session of parliament beginning on 21 July and ending on 21 August for the removal of Justice Yashwant Varma of Allahabad High Court, according to media reports.

The only provision in the Constitution to remove a judge of a constitutional court (high courts and the Supreme Court) is through an impeachment motion moved in either House of Parliament, by 100 MPs in the Lok Sabha or 50 MPs in the Rajya Sabha.

The government, however, is yet to decide in which House the motion will be moved.

The move follows a recommendation made by an in-house committee of three members set up by the Supreme Court to inquire into allegations against the then serving judge of the Delhi High Court, following the alleged discovery of ‘wads of burnt currency notes’ discovered from the outhouse of the judge’s official residence at 30, Tughlaq Crescent in New Delhi. The committee was comprised of two serving chief justices of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Himachal Pradesh High Court and a serving High Court judge of the Karnataka High Court.

The committee submitted its recommendation to then-Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna on 4 May 2025.

CJI Khanna forwarded the committee’s report to President Droupadi Murmu and is believed to have favoured removal of the judge, taking the view that recovery of cash from a high court judge’s residence was a serious matter.

Justice Varma had denied any knowledge of the cash recovered from the outhouse. He was, in turn, denied a request to meet the inquiry committee in person and his written submission to the committee was apparently not taken into consideration, claims Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Kapil Sibal in a column published in the New Indian Express.

Varma was transferred back to the Allahabad High Court following the scandal and the Supreme Court debarred him from discharging any judicial or administrative duties. Sibal claims in his column that the Supreme Court-appointed committee held the acceptance of the transfer without protest as proof of the judge’s guilt.

Sibal has been critical of the Supreme Court’s failure to set up an institutional mechanism to inquire into corruption charges against judges and its selective approach.

He has questioned why the Government of India and the Supreme Court had not been as keen to impeach former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, following allegations against him of sexual harassment in the workplace, or to remove Justice Shekhar Yadav of the Allahabad High Court for articulating majoritarian views, contrary to the Constitution of India.

Transparency, he said at an Express Adda in New Delhi, cannot be selective.

Alleging that there are strong grounds to suspect that the judge was not given a fair hearing, Sibal raised the following questions:

• The in-house committee concluded that because the currency was found in the outhouse of the judge’s residence, it must have been placed there with the judge’s tacit or active consent. Justice Varma was away in Madhya Pradesh on 14 March 2025 when the fire service was called to douse the fire and claimed he had no clue who had placed the currency there or how much.

• The Delhi Police is clueless about the quantum of currency, did not seize the burnt and half-burnt currency notes, did not prepare a seizure list with signatures of witnesses, failed to cordon off the outhouse, did not preserve the currency as evidence and failed to file an FIR against any unknown persons who may be responsible. The inquiry committee provided no answers to the questions around this huge lacuna and said only that the conduct of the police was not within its remit.

• A forensic lab report found the hard disk of the CCTV camera that is placed at the entrance, and which is controlled by the security personnel, was blank. There are no answers to questions on when the CCTV camera stopped working or whether a complaint was lodged about this failure. Yet the inquiry committee blamed Justice Varma for not seizing and preserving the CCTV footage.

• The inquiry report states in paragraph 50: ‘What has further come on record in the shape of statements of witnesses No. 31, 32, 34, 35, 40, 46 and 47 is that the storeroom (outhouse) was occasionally locked, and the key to the lock was accessible to all of the residents of 30, Tughlak Crescent, New Delhi, including the security staff and the personal staff of Justice Yashwant Varma…’. But the committee concluded that Justice Verma and his family had the ‘tacit or active control’ and access to the keys.

• The committee also concluded that the judge’s conduct in not going to the outhouse upon his return from Madhya Pradesh on the evening of 15 March and not protesting his transfer to the Allahabad High Court was unnatural and indicative of his guilt.

• The committee placed the burden on the judge to provide evidence as to whom the currency might belong.

• There is also no direct or circumstantial evidence of removal of the remnants of burnt currency from the premises after the fire services personnel and the police left on the morning of 15 March at 2 a.m. However, the CRPF personnel remained on-site thereafter — yet none reported seeing the staff remove the currency.

The legal fraternity appears divided on the issue, with a section of them convinced of the judge’s guilt and complicity and the other doubting the process and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju, however, has gone public to state that the government had reached out to several political parties and there was a broad consensus on the urgency of initiating the process of impeachment.

The last word on the controversy is yet to be spoken, though, it would appear.

Once either House adopts the impeachment motion, the Speaker or the chairman of the Rajya Sabha shall constitute a committee to hold an inquiry. The judge will also have to be given an opportunity to make his submission in the House.