Government officials say that the Central government will initiate impeachment proceedings against Justice Yashwant Varma, a High Court judge, because he allegedly has corruption links due to the discovery of a large amount of money from his Delhi house.
Of all the constitutional procedures, impeaching a judge is one of the least common and most delicate.
According to sources, efforts to get him impeached will come in the next session of Parliament.
The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Kiren Rijiju, will start talks with each political party before the motion is put before Parliament.
It is said that agreement among members from all parties is necessary, as a constitutional number of votes is required to remove a judge (impeach them).
There were a couple of meetings held today, focused on deciding the best way forward on the impeachment motion.
The Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal commenced his trip by meeting Home Minister Amit Shah. Later on, Mr Shah went to have a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Some time after, the leader of the Rajya Sabha, JP Nadda, had a meeting with Mr Shah and then the two leaders met Jagdeep Dhankhar, who was CEO of the Rajya Sabha.
There is trouble for Justice Varma of Delhi High Court following the ‘recovery’ of a huge sum of unaccounted cash after a fire at his residence in Delhi.
Based on the order of the then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Varma was to be transferred to the Allahabad High Court right away, as it was his original court.
No one was at Justice Varma’s official residence when the fire started. Family called for help by contacting both firefighters and the police to manage the blaze. Police and firefighters reportedly found a huge amount of cash after the fire was put out in one of the rooms.
Three investigative agencies under the in-house mechanism for judicial accountability found the allegations serious enough to proceed with removal proceedings against Justice Varma.
The then CJI Khanna followed the protocol of formally referring the inquiry Committee’s report to both the President and the Prime Minister as it was taken that the judge had refused to resign voluntarily.
This step is taken under in-house guidelines only where the inquiry finds credible evidence for impeachment.
The few induction proceedings ever held in the country were b…only more than a few have resigned before the motion was carried to its alternative.
Impeachment Motion: The Process Explained
An impeachment motion against a judge may be introduced in either House of Parliament but under given conditions.
The motion has to be supported by at least 50 members if introduced in Rajya Sabha, while 100 members’ support is a must for introduction in the Lok Sabha.
When the motion is passed by a majority of at least two-thirds of the total membership of the House in which it has been introduced, the presiding officer of that House shall forward it to the CJI for further action.
The CJI nominates one sitting Supreme Court judge and one Chief Justice of a High Court as members of the committee. The Government nominates an eminent jurist as the third member to complete the panel.
According to sources from the government, the motion will consist of findings of the committee that investigated the incident of bundles of half-burnt currency notes found at the residence of the judge during his tenure with the Delhi High Court.
The government is expected to build a consensus across party lines and will keep the opposition in the loop on the proposed draft motion.
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