SC rejects Justice Yashwant Varma's plea, says law can't be used to scuttle parliamentary process

New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma's plea challenging the Lok Sabha Speaker's decision to admit an impeachment motion and the validity of a panel set up to inquire corruption charges against him, saying a provision in law cannot be used as a weapon to scuttle parliamentary proceedings.

Justice Varma was repatriated from the Delhi High Court to the Allahabad High Court after burnt wads of currency notes were found at his official residence in New Delhi on March 14.

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma rejected the argument of Justice Varma that where notices of motion have been given in both Houses on the same day, the rejection of a notice in one House (Rajya Sabha) would automatically result in the failing of the notice in the other House (Lok Sabha).

The bench, analysing the proviso 1 to Section 3(2) of the Judges Inquiry Act which provides for procedure to be adopted by the Parliament for removal of a judge, said the first proviso is not exhaustive but situational in nature and does not contemplate a scenario where a notice of motion is accepted in one House and rejected in the other.

"To interpret the said proviso in the manner suggested by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi (for Varma) would require us to read into it a disabling consequence, namely, that the motion pending in the other House must also necessarily fail. Such an interpretation would amount to judicial legislation, a course we are neither empowered nor inclined to undertake," the bench said.

It added that the first proviso must, therefore, be construed to balance prescribed protection with the effective functioning of the mechanism for removal of a judge from office triggered by the people's representatives and not to frustrate it altogether.

"Constitutional safeguards for judges cannot come at the cost of paralysing the removal process itself," the bench said in a detailed judgment and added there is nothing in the Inquiry Act to suggest that rejection of a motion in one House would render the other House incompetent to proceed in accordance with law.

It said that the argument advanced on behalf of Justice Varma lacks any legal foundation and would entail consequences of a most serious nature.

The top court, in its 60-page verdict, added that the members of Parliament would be put back to square one and the process has to be initiated afresh in either House.

"Had the Parliament intended such far-reaching consequences, it would have articulated the first proviso in clear and unambiguous terms. The absence of any express provision to that effect is, in our opinion, determinative," it said, adding that taking away the autonomy of one of the two Houses of the Parliament could not have been the intent behind the first proviso (of the Inquiry Act).

It said, "Therefore, in a case where notices of motion were given in both Houses on the same day, the fact that a notice is not admitted in one House will not necessitate constitution of a joint committee and the Speaker or the Chairman, as the case may be, can independently proceed to constitute a Committee." The top court also rejected Varma's submission that the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, acting as the chairman, was not even empowered to consider the question of admission of the motion, far less refusing to admit it.

Justice Datta, who wrote the verdict on behalf of the bench, said, "The duties that the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman (in case of a vacancy in the former office) perform under the Inquiry Act cannot be separated from the office that they hold as the Presiding Officer of the House," the bench ruled.

It said if Varma's arguments are accepted, then "we would be left with a constitutional vacuum which, in the absence of the Chairman of the Council of States, or the Speaker of the House of People, as the case may be, would render the provisions of the Inquiry Act otiose in the given circumstance".

The top court was also critical of the secretary general of the Rajya Sabha giving his draft opinion which was signed by the deputy chairman on the motion moved by more than 50 members of the House on July 21 last year.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla admitted a multi-party motion for Justice Varma's removal on August 12 last year and constituted a three-member inquiry committee comprising Supreme Court judge Justice Aravind Kumar, Madras High Court Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and senior advocate B V Acharya.

On August 11, 2025, the notice given in the Rajya Sabha was scrutinised by its secretary general, who observed various deficiencies and held it to be not "in order".

The draft decision of the secretary general was then placed before the deputy chairman, discharging the functions of the chairman in his absence, who concurred with the conclusion and accordingly recorded that the notice was "not admitted". PTI MNL MNL KSS KSS