Cash-at-home row: Justice Varma removal notices handed; LS may initiate | India News
NEW DELHI: Notices for the removal of Justice Yashwant Varma of Allahabad HC were submitted in both Houses of Parliament on Monday in what could potentially result in the first instance of a judge being benched for alleged misconduct. While 145 LS members, cutting across party lines, signed the notice, 63 members belonging to different parties made an identical move in RS. Sources said that both the Houses are on the same legal footing in this regard and proceedings are likely to be launched in Lok Sabha.‘Removal of judge will not be completed in current session’ According to the Judges (Inquiry) Act, when notices of a motion are submitted on the same day in both Houses, a committee to examine the charges levelled against the judge will be constituted by LS Speaker and RS Chairman. The notable signatories to the LS notice, submitted to Speaker Om Birla, included leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi, BJP MPs Ravi Shankar Prasad and Anurag Thakur, NCP-SP’s Supriya Sule, Congress’s K C Venugopal and K Suresh, DMK’s T R Baalu, RSP member N K Premachandran and IUML member E T Mohammed Basheer. The notice signed by 63 opposition RS members was submitted to Upper House chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar who, before his shock resignation as vice-president, said he had received a notice for the removal of Justice Varma. “It has been signed by more than 50 members of the council of states. Thus, it meets the numerical requirement of signing by MPs for setting in motion the process of removal of an HC judge,” Dhankhar said. On law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal’s confirmation that a notice has also been submitted in LS, Dhankhar asked the RS secretary general to “take necessary steps in this direction”. Hours after the opposition move, BJP also collected signatures of its RS members and those from its allies to file a notice. BJP sources said the opposition-sponsored notice in RS prompted the party to act as it did not want to be left out of the exercise in the Upper House. Party sources said they had no idea about the opposition’s unilateral move as they cited their own bipartisan exercise in LS seeking signatures from all parties. Govt sources, however, confirmed that the matter will be taken up in LS first. Sources also confirmed that since the petition is set to be referred to a committee, the removal of the judge will not be completed in the current session. According to the Act, no committee shall be constituted unless the motion has been admitted in both Houses. The committee comprising a senior SC judge, a sitting HC chief justice and a distinguished jurist will then probe the charges levelled against Justice Varma and will be asked to come out with a report in three months. As sources indicated that LS is set to witness the motion first, this is the second time that a motion for the removal of a judge is being brought in the House after 32 years. In 1993, Justice V Ramaswami, an SC judge, faced a removal motion in LS.
