In a development that brings a fraught chapter in India’s higher judiciary to an abrupt pause, Justice Yashwant Varma has resigned from the Allahabad High Court, stepping down even as impeachment proceedings and multiple layers of inquiry continued to close in around him.
His exit, conveyed in a brief and restrained letter to President Droupadi Murmu, carries the tone of a man choosing silence over confrontation — “with profound anguish,” as he put it—while leaving unanswered the questions that have swirled for over a year.
The resignation, dated April 9 and effective immediately, avoids any elaboration on the circumstances behind it. “I do not propose to burden your august office with the reasons which have constrained me to submit this missive,” Justice Varma wrote, in what reads less like a defense and more like a deliberate withdrawal. He nonetheless acknowledged the weight of the office he was vacating, calling it “a privilege and an honour” to have served as a judge of the Allahabad High Court.
Yet the context of that departure is anything but quiet. Justice Varma had been at the centre of an intensifying controversy since March last year, when partially burnt cash was allegedly discovered in an outhouse at his official residence during his tenure at the Delhi High Court. The episode, initially opaque, soon snowballed into one of the rare instances where both judicial and parliamentary mechanisms were activated in tandem, testing the contours of accountability within the higher judiciary.
Following the controversy, Justice Varma was transferred to the Allahabad High Court, where he took oath in April 2025. But the move did little to quell scrutiny. By July, impeachment notices—backed by a significant number of Members of Parliament across both Houses—had been introduced, setting in motion the formal process under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968. A three-member inquiry committee was constituted by the Lok Sabha Speaker, tasked with examining the allegations and determining whether they warranted removal.
Justice Varma’s legal challenges to the process met with limited success. He approached the Supreme Court, questioning the validity of the inquiry panel on procedural grounds, arguing that notices in both Houses required coordinated action between presiding officers. A bench that included Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma declined to intervene, holding that he was not entitled to the relief sought.
He also took issue with the findings of an earlier in-house inquiry conducted under the supervision of the Supreme Court, which had concluded that he exercised “secret or active control” over the cash allegedly recovered. The apex court upheld the internal mechanism, describing it as consistent with principles of judicial independence and fairness—effectively reinforcing the credibility of the judiciary’s own disciplinary processes even as parliamentary scrutiny continued in parallel.
Before the parliamentary panel, which held hearings over several days in March, Justice Varma maintained his innocence. In written submissions, he denied any ownership of the cash and stated that he was not present at the premises when a reported fire incident led to its discovery. He further asserted that no cash had been recovered from his residence, challenging the very premise of the allegations.
The committee, however, has yet to conclude its deliberations. It is currently examining documentary records, testimonies, and responses submitted during the inquiry—a process that, in theory, could have culminated in a recommendation to Parliament on whether the charges merited removal.
Justice Varma’s resignation now alters that trajectory. While it effectively ends his tenure on the bench, it does not, by itself, erase the findings or the institutional questions raised by the case. Nor does it fully resolve the political and legal implications of an impeachment process that had gathered rare momentum.
For the judiciary, the episode underscores the delicate balance between independence and accountability—a balance that is often tested only in moments of crisis. For Parliament, it reflects the complexity of invoking one of the Constitution’s most stringent mechanisms against a sitting judge. And for Justice Varma, it marks an exit defined less by closure and more by the unresolved weight of the proceedings he leaves behind.
In the end, the letter he wrote is striking as much for what it withholds as for what it says. In choosing not to explain, Justice Varma has left the final word to the processes he sought to contest—and to the institutions now left to interpret his silence.