The parliamentary inquiry into allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma did not end with his resignation from the judiciary on April 9. In fact, 20 days after the resignation, the Lok Sabha secretariat conveyed to the three-member inquiry committee that Speaker Om Birla wanted the panel to complete its investigation and submit its report under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.
The court held that there was no present or inevitable infraction of any fundamental right warranting interference. An in-house committee subsequently found his explanation unsatisfactory, following which then CJI Sanjiv Khanna asked him to resign or face the constitutional process for removal. The committee was originally constituted with Justice Aravind Kumar, Justice Maninder Mohan Shrivastava — then chief justice of the Madras High Court, and senior advocate BV Acharya. Following Justice Shrivastava’s retirement, the panel was reconstituted with Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, then Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court and now a Supreme Court judge.
The parliamentary proceedings had their genesis in the controversy over the alleged discovery of burnt currency at Justice Varma’s official residence in Delhi following a fire on the night of March 14, 2025. Because the Rajya Sabha had declined to admit the parallel removal motion or because of the vacancy in the office of the Rajya Sabha chairman, the Supreme Court had rejected Justice Varma’s contention that the Lok Sabha Speaker’s decision to constitute the inquiry committee could be stalled.
The panel noted that this was not simply a case of a judge staying away from proceedings. Justice Varma had participated through lawyers, challenged the procedure, filed interlocutory applications, inspected records and cross-examined witnesses before withdrawing at the stage when he was required to lead his defence.
The 126-page report of the committee, headed by Supreme Court judge Justice Aravind Kumar, records that on April 29, the joint secretary of the Lok Sabha secretariat wrote to the committee’s secretary stating that the “Hon’ble Speaker, Lok Sabha, had desired” that the Judges (Inquiry) Committee complete its investigation and submit its report in terms of Section 4(2) of the 1968 Act. “At such a stage, withdrawal from participation could not disband the inquiry or efface the evidence already available,” the committee said. In January 2026, a bench led by Justice Dipankar Datta dismissed his challenge, holding that “constitutional safeguards for judges cannot come at the cost of paralysing the removal process itself”.
To be sure, Justice Varma had also challenged the initiation of the parliamentary removal process before the Supreme Court.
