Stepping up the heat on Justice Yashwant Varma, parliamentarians on Monday submitted notices to the presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha for the removal of the Allahabad high court judge from whose residence in New Delhi burnt wads of currency notes were found.
Justice Varma was repatriated from the Delhi high court to the Allahabad high court following the controversy.
A bipartisan delegation submitted a notice, bearing the signatures of 145 Lok Sabha members, for the removal of Justice Varma under Articles 124, 217 and 218 of the Constitution to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
The signatories to the notice included Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad and Anurag Thakur, Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar leader Supriya Sule, Congress leaders K C Venugopal and K Suresh, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader T R Baalu, Revolutionary Socialist Party member N K Premachandran and Indian Union Muslim League member E T Mohammed Basheer among others.
A similar notice was submitted to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar. Sixty-three members of the Upper House signed the notice.
"Sixty-three opposition MPs, including those from Aam Aadmi Party and Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties, have given a notice to the Rajya Sabha Chairman for removal of Justice Varma," Congress member Syed Naseer Hussain said.
Hussain said a notice has been given to Chairman Dhankhar for moving a motion to remove Varma.
He said although Trinamool Congress (TMC) members were not present on Monday, they are on board on the issue and will submit their signatures later.
A notice for the removal of a judge has to be signed by not less than 100 members in the Lok Sabha and 50 in the Rajya Sabha.
The motion can either be accepted or rejected by the Speaker or the Chairman.
According to the Judges (Inquiry) Act, when notices of a motion are submitted on the same day in both the Houses of Parliament, a committee to examine the charges levelled against the judge will be constituted by the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman.
The Act states that no committee shall be constituted unless the motion has been admitted in both Houses.
The committee comprising a senior judge of the Supreme Court, a sitting chief justice of a high court and a distinguished jurist will then probe the charges levelled against Justice Varma and will be asked to come out with a report in three months.
The inquiry report will be tabled in Parliament, followed by a discussion in both Houses after which there will be voting on the motion for the removal of Justice Varma.
Though Justice Varma has denied any wrongdoing, the inquiry panel has concluded that the judge and his family members had covert or active control over the storeroom where the cash was found, proving his misconduct serious enough to seek his removal.