NEW DELHI: Days after the abrupt resignation of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, the government set the ball rolling for the impeachment of Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma with Union minister Amit Shah holding high level meetings with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh on Wednesday.
Sources said while Birla and Harivansh held a meeting at Parliament to discuss the proceedings, Shah met them later.
According to people familiar with the development, the Lok Sabha Speaker may now initiate the process to set up a statutory committee to examine the charges of corruption levelled against the judge. 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 against him and submit its report in three months.
If the committee finds him guilty, 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 the judge.
The meeting of the presiding officers assumes significance as the impeachment process of Justice Varma reportedly led to the resignation of Dhankhar. Though there was no official word on the reason behind his exit, sources say it is linked to Dhankhar’s acceptance of a notice sponsored by the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, which went against the government’s plan to lead the offensive.
While a total of 145 Lok Sabha and 63 Rajya Sabha MPs submitted notices to the presiding officers for the removal of Varma on Monday, Dhankhar took cognisance of the Opposition notice and made a statement in the Rajya Sabha.
Speaking to this newspaper, a senior Rajya Sabha MP said that the notice is active as the Chairman has pronounced it as an order.
In his statement in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, Dhankhar said, “I direct the secretary general to find out whether a similar motion has been moved in Lok Sabha... If the motion is presented in the two houses on different dates, then the motion which is presented in the House first, that alone is taken into consideration and the second motion gets non-jurisdictional,” he said, citing the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.
RS notice now active
“A notice was given in RS on Justice Verma which he acknowledged and almost admitted it. When the chair has pronounced his ruling that it has fulfilled the stipulated requirement, it’s an order,” an RS member said