Even as the Union government weighs the move to begin removal proceedings against Allahabad High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma over the alleged recovery of unaccounted cash from his official residence, the judge has rushed to the Supreme Court challenging both the in-house inquiry process and former CJI Sanjiv Khanna’s May 8 communication to the President and the Prime Minister recommendating his removal from office.
Seeking the quashing of the three-judge committee’s May 3 report and of the former CJI’s communication recommending his removal, Justice Verma in his petition has stated that the inquiry was triggered without a formal complaint, conducted in a manner that violated basic fairness, and then used to push an outcome the Constitution reserves exclusively to Parliament.
Five core points that Justice Verma has raised in his petition before the Supreme Court challenging the procedure followed by the three-judge inquiry panel, its report and recommendation for his removal, include that the In-house procedure is extra-constitutional; There is no disciplinary superintendence of Supreme Court / Chief Justice of India over High Court judges; In-house inquiry vitiated as there is no complaint, no due process followed, and burden of proof shifted on him.
Other two key issues flagged by Justice Verma include – he was provided with no meaningful opportunity before former CJI to respond to the inquiry committee report, was given the option of resign or retire; and the media trial with selective leaks.
On the in-house committee procedure, Justice Verma has contended that the 1999 in-house mechanism—meant only for internal fact-finding and ethical self-regulation—has been stretched far beyond its remit. By culminating in a recommendation to remove a sitting High Court judge, it creates a parallel, extra-constitutional pathway that undermines the scheme of Articles 124(4) and 217 read with 218 of the Constitution, under which only Parliament, acting through the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, can initiate removal. Any move that bypasses the statutory safeguards, he says, erodes the separation of powers.
Justice Verma has argued that the Constitution does not vest the Supreme Court—or the Chief Justice of India—with disciplinary or supervisory authority to curtail the tenure of High Court judges.
Internal protocols, the petition says, cannot be used to “imbue the CJI with unregulated authority” over the continuance in office of another constitutional judge. Security of tenure, he says, is a structural guarantee of judicial independence and cannot be diluted by self-crafted processes.
According to the petition, the very invocation of the procedure was improper as no formal complaint was ever lodged. Instead, “presumptive queries” arising from media reports about cash recovered after a fire at his Delhi residence were treated as if they were evidence.
On the key alleged procedural lapses flagged by Justice Verma in the conduct of inquiry by three-judges committee includes – No notice of the procedure being followed; Witnesses examined in his absence; only paraphrased versions of what they said were shared with hom; Denial of access to relevant material, including CCTV footage; No effort was made to establish whose cash, how much, or how it came to be there; and Adverse inferences was drawn while effectively reversing the burden of proof on him.
On March 22, 2025, then Chief Justice of India Justice Sanjiv Khanna constituted a three-member in-house committee to inquire into the recovery of unaccounted cash from the official residence of Justice Yashwant Varma. The committee comprised Justice Sheel Nagu (then Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court), Justice G.S. Sandhawalia (then Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court), and Justice Anu Sivaraman (Judge, Karnataka High Court).
The cash was allegedly discovered by personnel of the Delhi Fire Service, who had entered Justice Varma’s government residence on March 14, 2025, to extinguish a fire that had broken out in the premises. At the time of the incident, Justice Varma was serving as a judge of the Delhi High Court and was not present at his residence when the fire occurred.
Following the incident and the reported discovery of cash, Justice Varma was divested of his judicial responsibilities and was subsequently transferred back to his parent High Court, the Allahabad High Court.