How the inquiry into Justice Yashwant Varma ended the way similar inquiries in our Country have ended, and what it says about the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.
THE MIDNIGHT OF FIRE
Close to midnight on 14 March 2025, a fire brigade van reached 30, Tughlaq Crescent in New Delhi, the official residence of a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court. The firefighters who arrived that night later gave broadly similar accounts of what they had seen and while they were dosing the fire in a storeroom near the outhouse, they found bundles of five-hundred-rupee notes lying on the floor and on a ledge. Some of the notes were burnt, some were partly burnt and others were soaked by the water being used to put out the fire and the quantity appeared unusual to everyone who saw it that day.
One of the firefighters later told the inquiry that the amount was “unimaginable” and that even five lakh rupees would have been too small a figure to describe what they had seen in the room and this is perhaps more difficult to understand is what happened immediately afterwards in the house and more particularly in the storeroom. As per chain of events nobody picked up even a single note to preserve it as evidence, room was not sealed, currency was not counted, tested or properly seized. The police and fire officials did not prepare the kind of detailed record normally expected at a scene that could later become the subject of a serious inquiry. By the time officials began asking what had actually been found, the room had already been cleaned by whom nobody knows. What remained were the memories of the people who had been there, some photographs and videos taken on mobile phones, and a room in which the original scene could no longer be examined.
The events of that night eventually led to an in-house inquiry by three judges. Its report went to the President and the Prime Minister. A writ petition was later filed and failed. A motion for the removal of Justice Varma was admitted in the Lok Sabha and eventually led to the constitution of a full Judges Inquiry Committee. The Committee consisted of a sitting Supreme Court judge as its Presiding Officer, a High Court Chief Justice and a senior advocate acting as the “distinguished jurist”.
For almost nine months, the Committee examined whether Justice Varma should be removed from office. Nine witnesses gave evidence and hundreds of exhibits were placed on record. But when the proceedings reached the stage at which Justice Varma was expected to present his own witnesses and answer the allegations against him, he stopped participating. He wrote to the President of India and to the Chief Justice of India and later instructed his lawyers to withdraw from the proceedings. The Committee was therefore left to complete its work without the participation of the person at the centre of the inquiry. It eventually recorded findings against him.
That is what makes this case worth examining. It is not simply a question of whether the Committee got every legal issue right or wrong.The issue which haunts every time, when such committee is constituted, it always run for months, hear witnesses, examine and exhibit documents and then there is report, however, interestingly, there is no consequence for the Judge, who decided to walk away as per his whims and fancy every time, such committee is constituted under the 1968 Act.
The case also raises a wider question about the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 and whether the system created by that law is actually capable of delivering accountability when a judge chooses to leave office before the process reaches Parliament.
A COMMITTEE CONSTITUTED TO INVESTIGATE, NOT TO PUNISH
Before looking at the Committee’s work, it is important to understand what it was actually allowed to do. Much of the frustration surrounding this case comes from expecting the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 to do more than it was designed to do.
Article 124(4) of the Constitution says that a judge can be removed only for “proved misbehaviour or incapacity”. It also requires both Houses of Parliament to pass an address for removal by a majority of the total membership of the House and by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. The 1968 Act was created to provide a procedure through which allegations of misbehaviour or incapacity could be examined and proved.
That is where the inquiry committee comes in. The Committee can frame charges, summon witnesses, call for documents, receive evidence and exercise powers similar to those of a civil court. After examining the evidence, it must give findings on the charges and send its report to the Speaker or the Chairman who initiated the process.
That, however, is where the Committee’s role ends. It does not itself remove the judge. It does not impose a punishment and it does not decide whether someone should face criminal prosecution. It also cannot force Parliament to vote in favour of removal. Its report is essentially the material on which Parliament is later expected to act.
This distinction matters because it exposes one of the main weaknesses in the system. The entire process that produced the two-volume report was never meant to be the final stage. It was meant to provide the evidence and findings for a later decision by Parliament. If a judge leaves office before Parliament can act, however, the carefully built inquiry may have very little practical effect.
WHAT THE COMMITTEE ACTUALLY HEARD
The evidence before the Committee was not insignificant. Six officials from the Delhi Fire Service and Delhi Police described seeing bundles or piles of five-hundred-rupee notes in the storeroom. None of them was known to the judge before that night, and there was no obvious reason for them to act together against him. Their descriptions were not identical, but that is not unusual when different people describe something they saw during a stressful event. One witness described notes spread across the room, another mentioned a stack on a ledge and another described the quantity as far beyond anything an ordinary person would normally expect to see.
A forensic witness from the CFSL also confirmed that the videos recovered from the officials’ phones had not been tampered with. Taken together, this gave the Committee a substantial body of evidence that something unusual had been found in the storeroom.
Justice Varma’s explanation changed during the course of the case, and the Committee considered that important. In March 2025, soon after the fire, his position was a complete denial. He said that no cash had been seen by his family or staff after the fire and that neither he nor anyone connected with him had placed cash there. He also suggested that the incident could have been part of an attempt to frame him.
Later, when he challenged the findings of the in-house inquiry, his position became narrower. He no longer completely disputed that burnt currency had been found. Instead, he argued that the currency had never been properly seized, counted or tested and questioned whether the notes were even genuine. During the proceedings before the Committee, the defence position shifted again. Suggestions were put to the fire and police witnesses that they themselves might have taken the money away and that nobody had properly tested even one note to establish that it was genuine currency.
The Committee was entitled to notice these changes. From its point of view, the question was straightforward: if the original account was accurate, why did the explanation become different at different stages of the proceedings?
THE MOMENT THE JUDGE WALKED AWAY
What makes this case different from an ordinary inquiry that ends with an adverse finding is the way the proceedings came to an end. The evidence against Justice Varma closed in March 2026. The Committee then gave him an opportunity to present his own witnesses. His lawyers had asked for more time and the Committee granted it. A date was fixed for him to answer the allegations on record. That date was 10 April 2026.
Instead of submitting a list of witnesses, the Committee received a letter from the judge dated the previous day. He said that he was withdrawing from the proceedings altogether. He also said that he had written separately to the President and the Chief Justice of India.
Eleven days later, his lawyers appeared for the final time, not to argue his case but to ask to be released from representing him. The Committee allowed them to withdraw and then completed the proceedings without hearing from the judge himself.
There is an old principle in evidence law that, in some circumstances, a person’s failure to explain something can be considered against that person. At the same time, a tribunal should be careful about relying too heavily on silence, particularly when the person has said that the process itself is unfair.
In this case, the Committee treated Justice Varma’s decision not to participate as an adverse circumstance. It relied on the same basic fact while considering each of the three charges. Using a person’s silence as one part of an otherwise complete case is one thing. Using the same silence repeatedly in support of different charges is more difficult to justify. There is a point at which the absence of an explanation can begin to take the place of evidence that should have been gathered separately.
DID THE COMMITTEE FOLLOW ITS OWN RULE BOOK?
The Speaker admitted the removal motion and constituted the Committee on 12 August 2025. The Articles of Charge were framed and served on Justice Varma only on 27 November 2025 a gap of more than three and a half months. The report does not explain this gap. In the interim, the Committee met three times and dealt with arrangements, appointment of counsel, and collection of material from the In-House Committee and the Supreme Court and some of this was necessary, but one of it accounts for three months. Once charges were served, the Committee worked to a fixed timeline. However, no such timeline governed the framing of the charges itself. The judge in question faced a strict clock but the Committee, at the earlier stage, did not. Rule 9(2)(c) of the Judges (Inquiry) Rules, 1969 gives the Committee three months from service of charges to submit its report, which, were served on 27 November 2025 and the original period expired on 26 February 2026.
The Rules permit the Speaker or Chairman to extend this period for “sufficient cause” and seeking an extension is not, by itself, objectionable but the link which is missing is a documentary chain that one was granted by the Speaker at the relevant time or not.
At the meeting on 12 February 2026, the Committee noted the deadline and resolved to seek more time, what happened after that is not recorded in the report. By the next relevant meeting, on 6 March 2026, the original deadline had already lapsed. That meeting dealt with the replacement of a member who had retired. There is no record of whether the Speaker granted the extension, what the “sufficient cause” was, or what the new deadline was for the Committee. The next communication from the Speaker’s office is dated 29 April 2026 a letter from the Joint Secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat, asking the Committee to complete its inquiry and submit its report. By then, Justice Varma had already withdrawn from the proceedings, on 9 April,2026 and his lawyers had been discharged on 21 April, 2026.
It is interesting to note that for roughly two months, then, there is no order on record showing a validly extended deadline, no stated “sufficient cause,” and no clear replacement date is available on record. A Committee that expected strict compliance from the judge ought to be able to show equally strict compliance with its own statutory timetable, however, on this record, it failed to do it.
Another aspect which is worth noting is that under Rule 10(1) it is required that evidence to be recorded under the personal direction and supervision of the Presiding Officer, applying the Code of Civil Procedure where appropriate and much of the examination-in-chief here was conducted by affidavit rather than orally and the Committee relied on Order XVIII Rule 4 CPC to justify this, which is defensible. Rule 10(2) requires copies of all evidence, oral and documentary, to be placed before each House of Parliament along with the report. Nothing in the material reviewed and report available on the website of the Lok Sabha establishes that, whether all documents/exhibits and testimonies recorded along with communications (internal/external) was done when the same was laid before the Parliament, which is a further compliance question left unanswered.
THE POWERS OF THE COMMITTEE AND ITS FAILURE
There’s a more serious question buried in what the Committee chose not to investigate. Section 5 of the Judges (Inquiry) Act gives the Committee powers similar to a civil court’s, including the power to summon witnesses and call for documents on its own. The Committee was not meant to sit between two sides and wait for them to hand over whatever they decided to present. The Committee could go looking for information itself, yet, nothing in the record shows the Committee using this power at any point during the nine-month inquiry to call for witnesses to ascertain factual inaccuracy.
Several people who were close to the events that night were named repeatedly in the evidence, yet none of them was called to testify. Justice Varma’s family members, who were, in the house and who first alerted the fire brigade were never examined. Rajinder Singh Karki, his Private Secretary, who, was seen near the storeroom in the early hours of the morning. The Committee itself described him as having acted “on instructions of the Judge.” Karki was never questioned under oath. Mohd. Rahil, an attendant who was with him, was also named in the evidence he reportedly told a security guard to return to his post when the guard offered to help. Rahil, too, was never called by the Committee. These were people at the centre of the events under inquiry and yet neither the side pressing the allegations nor the Committee itself called a single one of them.
The Committee also never answered one of the most basic questions about that night, how many people were actually present at the house or on the compound that day and the report gives no clear headcount also. It does not establish how the fire started, either. The fire is what set off the entire chain of events, yet there is no real discussion of its cause and nothing in the record examines whether it came from an electrical fault, a candle, a short circuit, or something else. An inquiry that spends this much time on what was found after a fire should spend some time on how that fire began to complete the chain of events.
The security arrangements at the residence deserved closer attention too, wherein, a sitting High Court judge’s residence would normally have Delhi Police personnel, CRPF personnel, a gate, and security records. Only one CRPF witness was examined, an Assistant Sub-Inspector, and his evidence was mostly about a diary register only and the remaining security personnel on duty that night were never called by either of the side including the committee.
When the Committee finally asked for the visitor register, the Delhi Police said in an affidavit that no such register had been maintained for Justice Varma residence. That is a serious fact on its own, wherein, a sitting High Court judge’s residence had no visitor register, the Committee should have asked why, and it should have looked for some other way to establish, who came and went that night. The CCTV footage could have answered that question, but the DVR was apparently never received a fact one witness admitted under cross-examination. The report shows no serious follow-up on why evidence that could have mattered this much simply went missing during the hearing or investigation conducted by the committee.
THE CURRENCY THAT WAS NEVER SEIZED
The issue at heart the burnt currency notes, is vital evidence, and non-seizure raised a crucial flaw, which was never explained or inquired upon by the committee. It was recorded by the committee that Head Constable Roop Chand, who appeared as PW-7, had not seized the burnt currency. He said the matter was sensitive because it involved a sitting High Court judge and that he was “acting according to the instructions of the SHO”.
During cross-examination, he also said that he had taken photographs and videos on his personal phone on the SHO’s instructions. He forwarded them to his superiors and then deleted them from his phone after receiving an oral instruction from the SHO. The SHO, Inspector Umesh Malik, appeared as PW-8 and confirmed that he had asked Roop Chand to take the photographs and videos. He denied, however, giving any instruction not to seize the currency or not to seal the storeroom. There is a clear contradiction in the statements of both the witnesses. One officer said he was acting on instructions that affected the handling of the evidence, while the officer he identified as giving those instructions denied giving them. That should have led to further questions by the Committee i.e.,
On whose behest instructions were issued not to seize the burnt currency? Who directed the people present at the spot not to sealed the room? Who instructed that there cannot be an attempt to count the currency or verify whether its genuine or fake currency. It is imperative to note that there was no attempt to verify the burnt currency. It might be a case that stock pile which was burnt or seen allegedly was of a fake currency note. But now there will be a no answer to it. The report refers in places to actions being taken “as directed by the superior officers”, but it does not clearly identify those officers or establish who gave the final direction.
There is also another unexplained statement in Roop Chand’s evidence. He said that he contacted the CRPF witness the following day to ask whether anything else needed to be done. He was told that there was nothing to do because “everything has been removed by them”. The identity of “them” was not properly explored, even though the case itself involved questions about missing physical evidence.
HOW DID THE VIDEOS REACH THE MEDIA?
There is another obvious lacuna according to the Committee’s own account, photographs and videos of the currency were taken by officials on personal mobile phones. They were forwarded through an official chain and, at least in Roop Chand’s case, later deleted from his phone and yet the same visual material eventually appeared widely in newspapers and on television.
That raises a question, how did evidence of such nature move from an internal chain of communication made to the public? It was released by whom and whose instructions? The report does not appear to examine these questions from concern witnesses. This is crucial because the Committee was prepared to draw adverse conclusions about the movements of people, who were connected with the judge. It could reasonably have shown the same level of interest in how the evidence itself moved from government officials to the media. A committee examining a case this serious should ideally ask what happened to evidence at every stage, not just what happened inside the judge’s residence. If a video was taken on an official’s phone, forwarded to superiors and then deleted, its later appearance in the media should have been traced. That question is especially important when the handling and preservation of evidence is already one of the central concerns in the case.
THE CRACKS IN THE COMMITTEE’S REASONING
There are also problems with parts of the Committee’s reasoning, wherein, at one point, the report correctly states that a suggestion made to a witness during cross-examination is not proof of the fact being suggested. But elsewhere it says that a defence suggestion about fire officials remaining at the scene “clearly establishes the presence of cash in the storeroom”. Those two positions do not sit easily together. If a suggestion made to a witness is not proof of the fact being suggested, it is difficult to later treat a similar suggestion as establishing that fact.
The report also says that it would not use phone records to establish what was actually said during conversations. Yet elsewhere it uses those same phone records to conclude that staff members acted “under instructions of the Judge”. If the contents of a conversation cannot be established from phone records, it becomes difficult to use those records to prove what instructions were given. The language of the report also becomes unusually strong in some places. The judge’s defence is described as “false” rather than simply unproved, and his conduct is linked to “grave suspicion”. Such language can make the report sound more like an argument against the judge than a neutral assessment of the evidence.
None of this means that the Committee’s concerns about the currency or the events in the storeroom were unreasonable. The evidence was serious and clearly raised questions that required answers. But a report of this importance needed to maintain a careful distinction between what the evidence actually established and what the Committee believed the evidence suggested.
WHY DOES IT ALWAYS END THE SAME WAY?
What makes these issues more than a criticism of one particular report is India’s earlier experience with judicial removal proceedings. The country has been through similar situations before, and the pattern has been remarkably consistent.
In 1993, Justice V. Ramaswami became the first judge in independent India to face a removal motion in Parliament after an inquiry committee found the charges against him proved. The motion nevertheless failed because members of the ruling party abstained in sufficient numbers to prevent the required two-thirds majority. Justice Ramaswami remained in office until his term ended.
In 2011, Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court faced another such proceeding. This time the Rajya Sabha passed the removal motion by 189 votes to 17. It was the first time either House of Parliament had done so. But before the Lok Sabha could consider the same motion, Justice Sen resigned. The Speaker then treated the matter as finished.
Justice P.D. Dinakaran also resigned in 2011 while facing an inquiry. He later argued that his resignation made the inquiry “infructuous” and that the Committee could not lawfully continue.
The circumstances of these cases were different, but the broader outcome was the same. No judge has actually been removed from judicial office through the constitutional process created for that purpose. Judges who have faced the process have either survived because Parliament did not reach the required majority or have left office before the final vote could take place.
Justice Varma’s withdrawal and the resignation referred to in his communications fit into that same pattern. This is why the case matters beyond the allegations against one judge. It shows that leaving office can become a practical way of avoiding the final consequences of the process.
SO, WHAT THE COMMITTEE ACHIEVED?
This is probably the most difficult question raised by the entire episode. A sitting Supreme Court judge spent months presiding over the inquiry. Two other senior legal figures also spent months working on the matter. Nine witnesses were examined and hundreds of exhibits were considered. A detailed two-volume report was prepared.
Yet the Committee itself had no power to remove the judge. If the judge had resigned, there was no longer an office from which Parliament could remove him. Even if he had remained in office, removal would still have required a two-thirds majority in Parliament, something that history shows is difficult to achieve.
The final outcome was therefore largely outside the Committee’s control. Justice Varma’s decision to withdraw from the proceedings and leave office changed what the inquiry could practically achieve. This does not necessarily mean that there was a conspiracy or a deliberate cover-up. A simpler explanation is that the law gave the person being investigated a way to leave the process at the point when the proceedings mattered most, without providing a clear mechanism for the findings to have consequences after that.
That is the real weakness in the system. An inquiry that cannot effectively deal with the departure of the person being investigated can produce a detailed report but still fail to deliver meaningful accountability. It becomes possible to spend months examining evidence, only for the process to lose most of its practical effect once the judge leaves office.
WHAT COULD ACTUALLY MAKE THIS WORK?
The answer is not to remove all protections from judges. Judicial independence is important, and the high constitutional threshold for removing a judge exists for a reason. But a system that has operated for more than fifty years without actually removing a judge through this process needs to be reconsidered.
The first reform should deal directly with resignation. The law could provide that once charges have been framed, a judge’s resignation does not automatically end the inquiry. The Committee should be able to complete its report even if the person has already left office. The law could also provide consequences for a finding of proved misbehaviour after resignation, including consequences relating to pension, post-retirement benefits or eligibility for certain future public appointments. The argument that resignation automatically makes the inquiry “infructuous” should not be allowed to end the process.
The second reform should be to create consequences other than removal. At present, the main constitutional consequence for proved misbehaviour is removal. If Parliament does not reach the required majority, there may be no practical consequence even where serious misconduct has been established. There could be intermediate measures such as formal censure, compulsory retirement or loss of part of pension benefits, subject to proper safeguards. Such measures would give the findings of an inquiry some practical effect even when removal is not possible.
The third reform should create a clearer connection between a judicial inquiry and the criminal justice system. If an inquiry finds evidence that may amount to a criminal offence, there should be a clear route for that matter to reach an investigating agency. At present, serious findings can remain inside the inquiry report without anyone having a clearly defined responsibility to take the next step. Any protection given to judges before prosecution should remain, but that protection should not become a reason for a serious matter to simply stop.
Finally, the Committee should make fuller use of the investigative powers it already has. Section 5 gives it the power to summon witnesses on its own. If important people are repeatedly mentioned in the evidence, the Committee should be able to call them even when neither side wants them called. Family members, household staff and security personnel who were directly connected to the events should not remain outside the inquiry simply because the parties chose not to call them. The Committee should not act only as an umpire between two sides. It is also a fact-finding body. It has powers for a reason, and those powers should be used when important questions remain unanswered.
WHERE THIS LEAVES THINGS
In the end, what is relevant that a fire broke out in a judge’s storeroom and, according to several independent witnesses, a large amount of cash was found there. The cash was not properly seized or preserved by the concerned authorities and no one was bothered to inquire about same or to fix any responsibility. The committee never bothered to question material witnesses related to incident and questions about how the fire started and how the currency reached the media were not fully answered or even discussed. The Committee spent months examining the case and eventually reached serious findings, but the law allowed the person at the centre of the inquiry to leave the process before it reached its final stage asper his desire. The Committee deserves credit for examining the evidence it did consider and for producing a detailed report, post resignation on conjectures.
The deeper problem lies with the law itself which is that an accountability system should not depend entirely on whether the person being investigated chooses to remain in office until the end and if leaving office is enough to make the process lose most of its practical effect, then the system has a basic weakness, which need to be cured at the earliest. It is visible that after more than fifty years and several serious cases, that weakness can no longer be ignored by law makers.
The real question is therefore not whether the existing process looks impressive on paper. It is whether the process can actually deliver accountability when it matters. In its present form, that question remains difficult to answer in the affirmative that’s where the law failed since its inception.
*Vaibhav Choudhary, Advocate-on-Record.
The author has acknowledged the efforts of Mayank Singh Rawat & Zaid Ahmed, Advocates, Supreme Court of India.