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100 MPs signed notice to impeach HC judge: Rijiju
A motion for the removal of a judge has to be signed by not less than 100 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 50 in the Rajya Sabha.
Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday said more than 100 lawmakers have already signed a notice for impeachment of sitting high court judge, justice Yashwant Varma, from whose residence in Delhi a huge cache of cash was recovered in March this year.
Rijiju added the signature collection exercise was still going on, indicating that the government wanted a large number lawmakers to push the notice to showcase an all-round support in favour of the impeachment of Justice Varma.
“The signature is underway and it has crossed 100 already,” Rijiju told reporters, on the eve of the beginning of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
A motion for the removal of a judge has to be signed by not less than 100 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 50 in the Rajya Sabha. With more than 100 signatures already received in favour of bringing the impeachment motion, it is likely to be brought in the Lower House.
The government might bring the notice against Justice Varma in the first week of the Monsoon Session, with officials familiar with the matter saying the internal probe report against the judge by a three-member committee appointed by the Supreme Court will have no bearing on Parliament’s impeachment process as the House will rely on the notice of the lawmakers and its in-house report.
Senior Lok Sabha officials said that following the notice of the MPs, the Presiding Officer of the House (in case of Lok Sabha, it will be Birla) will first verify the signatures—a process that involves the Speaker’s office verifying the signature with individual MPs.
“After the signatures are verified and the motion is adopted, the House will form a panel comprising of a Supreme Court Judge, High Court chief justice and an eminent jurist,” an official said.
A second official pointed out that the entire process involving passage of the motion in both Houses “has to be finished in the upcoming Monsoon session. Otherwise, the motion becomes infructuous. There is no provision to carry it over to the next session.”
A major controversy erupted days after huge stash of cash was discovered after a fire broke out at the residence of justice Varma, then a judge of the Delhi high court, on March 14, when he was away on a Holi break. His personal secretary had alerted the fire department.
The cash discovery row led to several steps, including a preliminary inquiry by Delhi high court chief justice DK Upadhyaya, judicial work being taken away from Justice Varma in the Delhi high court, and later his transfer to his parent Allahabad high court sans judicial work.
A committee of three high court judges appointed by then Chief Justice of India Sanjeev Khanna had indicted him. Justice Khanna referred the matter to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recommending Varma’s removal after he refused to resign.
Justice Varma has protested his innocence and has moved the apex court against the committee’s findings.
Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta high court was the first judge in Independent India to be impeached in the Rajya Sabha. He, however, resigned before the Lok Sabha was scheduled to discuss his impeachment.
In 1993, Parliament witnessed the first impeachment motion against a sitting judge when the Lok Sabha debated on the proposal to impeach chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court, V Ramaswamy. The motion failed as a requisite number of MPs didn’t vote.
To pass an impeachment motion, the proposal has to be supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-third of the members of the House present and voting.
