NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed Allahabad high court judge Yashwant Verma’s plea challenging Lok Sabha speaker’s decision to appoint a committee for his impeachment.This comes after Verma moved the top court following Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s announced that a three-member panel has been constituted to investigate allegations against him.The members of the committee include Justice Amit Kumar, Justice Maninder Mohan Srivastava and B B Acharya, the Lok Sabha Speaker announced.Birla accepted the motion signed by 146 MPs for impeachment of Justice Yashwant Verma.Earlier in August last year, the top court held that an in-house inquiry procedure which led to a recommendation to remove Justice Yashwant Varma has legal sanction.The apex court dismissed a plea filed by Justice Varma challenging the in-house inquiry panel’s report, and the former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna’s recommendation to initiate impeachment proceedings against him in the case of the fire incident that led to recovery of burnt unaccounted cash at his official residence in the national capital, when he was a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court.Cash was allegedly found by fire tenders when a fire broke out at his Delhi residence on March 14, while he was a judge of the Delhi high court. The judge was not present at his house.During a hearing on July 28, the Apex court had posed various questions to Justice Yashwant Varma while hearing his plea. The court asked Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing on behalf of Justice Varma, why his client did not challenge the three-judge in-house inquiry procedure constituted by the Chief Justice of India prior to his appearance before the panel.The top court questioned why Justice Varma chose to appear before the in-house inquiry panel if he believed it was unconstitutional, and why he is challenging it only now, after the proceedings have concluded.
