Six months on, issue of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav’s removal hangs fire

More than six months after 55 MPs submitted a notice for motion to remove Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav of Allahabad High Court for his alleged misconduct to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, the issue is hanging fire as only 45 of the MPs have verified their signatures.

The Rajya Sabha Secretariat is unable to move forward in the matter, awaiting verification of signatures by the remaining MPs, including independent MP Kapil Sibal, Rajya Sabha sources said.

The last ones to verify their signatures were P Chidambaram and Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, they said, adding that the Secretariat was waiting for MPs Jose K Mani, Sanjiv Arora, Faiyaz Ahmad, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, GC Chandrashekhar, Raghav Chadha, NR Elango and Sushmita Dev to verify their signatures before taking the next step.

Sibal could not be reached for his comments.

At a VHP event, Justice Yadav had allegedly endorsed the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and made certain controversial remarks against Muslims, attracting criticism from legal and political circles.

On December 13, 2024, an undated notice for motion under the Judges Inquiry Act, 1968, bearing 55 purported signatures of the members of the Rajya Sabha was submitted to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat seeking his removal from office.

JMM MP Sarfaraz Ahmed’s signature appears twice on the notice. However, Ahmed has confirmed to Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar that he had signed the document only once, sources said, adding, “The possibility of a criminal investigation by the Ethics Committee and the Privileges Committee of the House into the notice seeking Justice Yadav’s removal can’t be ruled out as the document bears ‘forged’ signature of an MP.”

While assuring the members of having taken all procedural steps, Dhankhar had earlier said the issue of ‘forged’ signature might graduate to culpability to a higher level.

“If the number is above 50, I will proceed accordingly. Most of the members have cooperated. Those members, who have not done so far, may please do it in response to the second mail sent to them. Then, the process will not be delayed at my level even for a moment,” he had told the members.

The issue is likely to be raised during the ensuing monsoon session of Parliament commencing on July 21.

The chairman of the Rajya Sabha can either admit or refuse to admit the notice for the motion to remove a judge. However, if he admits the motion, a three-member committee comprising a Supreme Court judge, a high court chief justice and a distinguished jurist will be constituted to probe the complaint and determine whether a case is made out to initiate the process for removal of the judge in question.

In case such a committee is set up and it finds the guilty of “misbehaviour or incapacity”, the motion for his removal will be taken up for consideration and debated in Parliament.

According to Article 124(4) of the Constitution, to remove a judge from office, the motion has to be adopted by each House by a majority of the total membership of that House and a majority of at least two-thirds of the members of that House present and voting.  After the motion is adopted in both the Houses, it’s sent in the same session to the president, who will issue an order for removal of the judge.

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