New Delhi : Chief Justice of India BR Gavai on Wednesday said a special bench would be constituted to hear a petition filed by Justice Yashwant Varma, who has challenged the findings of a three-judge in-house committee that indicted him after a large amount of cash was recovered from his official residence. The matter was mentioned before a bench comprising Chief Justice Gavai and Justices K. Vinod Chandran and Joymalya Bagchi. When senior advocate Kapil Sibal sought urgent listing of the petition.
Sibal, along with senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Rakesh Dwivedi, Sidharth Luthra, and Siddharth Aggarwal, and advocates George Pothan Poothicote and Manisha Singh, appeared for Justice Varma. We have filed the petition on behalf of the Allahabad High Court judge. Some constitutional issues are involved. I request you to constitute a bench as soon as possible, Sibal said.
Justice Varma was divested of judicial work and sent back to the Allahabad High Court in April after a fire broke out at his official residence in Delhi. A three-judge panel comprising Chief Justice Sheel Nagu (Punjab and Haryana High Court), Chief Justice GS Sandhawalia (Himachal Pradesh High Court), and Justice Anu Sivaraman (Karnataka High Court) was constituted to look into the matter.
Justice Varma has now approached the Supreme Court challenging the procedure adopted by the in-house committee and the findings of the report. The petition also questions the recommendation made to the President and the Prime Minister to initiate impeachment proceedings. Meanwhile, impeachment proceedings against Justice Varma were formally set in motion earlier this week. On Monday, 152 Members of Parliament submitted a signed memorandum to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking his removal over allegations of misconduct.
The motion, filed under Articles 124, 217, and 218 of the Constitution, received cross-party support from MPs of the BJP, Congress, TDP, JDU, CPM, and others. Signatories include Anurag Thakur, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rahul Gandhi, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Supriya Sule, KC Venugopal, and PP Chaudhary.
In the Upper House, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar confirmed that he had received a motion signed by over 50 Rajya Sabha MPs. Noting the parallel notice submitted in the Lok Sabha, he directed the secretary-general to initiate the next steps in the impeachment process.