Cash dispute: The Lok Sabha appoints a three-member panel to consider impeaching Justice Varma

A three-member panel to investigate accusations against Justice Yashwant Varma, whose home a substantial cash cache was found, was announced by Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday as the impeachment process accelerated. Senior counsel BV Acharaya, Chief Justice of the Madras High Court Justice Maninder Mohan, and Supreme Court Justice Aravind Kumar make up the three-member bench.

Accepting the motion signed by 146 MPs for the impeachment of the judge, the Speaker said, “The committee will submit its report as early as possible. The proposal will remain pending till the receipt of the report.”

Article 124(4) of the Constitution lays out the process for removing a judge from office. The Speaker will present the committee’s report to the House after it has been submitted by the Lok Sabha.

The committee can cross-examine witnesses and request evidence. The House that initially introduced the panel’s report adopts it if the judge is found guilty. A motion will then be submitted to a vote. The other house will experience the same thing.

According to the regulations, the judge must be impeached with the support of at least two-thirds of the “present and voting” members of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
The procedure is anticipated to proceed smoothly because the opposition and the ruling coalition have the same views regarding Justice Varma’s impeachment.

This comes days after Justice Varma’s plea contesting the in-house probe report and the then-CJI’s recommendation to the President to remove him was denied by the Supreme Court.
When a fire broke out at the judge’s official residence in Delhi on March 14, the cash piles, which were around 1.5 feet tall, were discovered there. At the time, the judge wasn’t at his house.

The Supreme Court moved him from the Delhi High Court to the Allahabad High Court following the discovery. He also lost all of his judicial employment. The Supreme Court also established an internal investigating panel. The panel concluded that there was “sufficient substance” in the claims after reviewing the testimony of 55 witnesses.

The panel recommended Justice Varma’s removal after concluding that he and his family had “active control” over the chamber where the money was discovered. In his appeal to the Supreme Court, the judge claimed that the in-house panel had acted in a “pre-determined manner” and had not given him a fair chance to defend himself.

Nonetheless, the petitioner’s plea was dismissed by the top court, which ruled that no fundamental rights had been violated.