Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla (ANI file photo)
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said on Saturday that the report of the three-member committee that probed corruption charges against Justice Yashwant Varma will be tabled in Lok Sabha in the monsoon session beginning July 20, keeping open the possibility of Parliament taking up the motion for his removal despite his decision to resign.On the sidelines of a programme where he addressed West Bengal MLAs, Birla said that it will be for House to decide the next course of action after the report, which was submitted to him by the committee headed by Justice Aravind Kumar of Supreme Court, is tabled. The report may be tabled on the first day of the session. He noted that members of different parties, belonging to the governing alliance as well as opposition, had signed the notice for Varma’s removal.
Removal motion against Justice Varma in legal grey area after his resignation
The Allahabad high court justice, whose name continues to figure among serving judges on its portal despite his resignation, is facing allegations of financial irregularities after wads of destroyed currency notes were discovered at an outhouse of his New Delhi bungalow by emergency response officers following a fire incident in March last year.Asked about the opinion that the motion, which is dictated by the Judges Inquiry Act, had turned infructuous after Varma’s resignation, sources said it is legally a grey area with no conclusive view on it. “The fact remains that his high court continues to name him among its serving judges,” a source said, adding that despite his resignation, the inquiry committee had gone ahead with the task of completing its report and submitted its findings to Birla.Varma was a judge at Delhi HC when the incident came to light, sparking calls for exemplary action against him. He was later repatriated to his parent Allahabad HC.Lok Sabha MPs cutting across party lines, including Rahul Gandhi of Congress, and Ravi Shankar Prasad and Anurag Singh Thakur of BJP, were among over 146 signatories to the notice against him.In his statements to the in-house probe committee set up by then CJI Sanjiv Khanna and later to the committee formed by Birla, Varma had protested his innocence and claimed ignorance of how the large amount of unaccounted money was found at his residence.He submitted his resignation to President Droupadi Murmu in April this year.
