Justice Varma ouster process to start in LS as RS motion junked

Days after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned as Vice-President after mentioning a controversial Opposition-backed motion against Justice Yashwant Varma in the Rajya Sabha, the government on Friday broke silence on the issue saying the removal proceedings would now unfold in the Lok Sabha.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the proceedings to remove Justice Varma (for his alleged role in the cash recovery row) would take place in the Lok Sabha. He said the parallel motion in the Rajya Sabha had not been admitted.

“All parties had unanimously decided to move together decisively against perceived corruption in the higher judiciary. Accordingly, 152 MPs across party lines had signed the notice of motion for removal submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla," Rijiju said, stressing the bipartisan nature of the motion in the Lok Sabha.

Contrastingly in the Rajya Sabha, Dhankhar had on July 21 admitted a separate motion signed by 63 Opposition MPs. This motion lacked bipartisan support on the issue of removal of Justice Varma and left the government embarrassed as no NDA member was aware of the move.

Government leaders said they were completely in the dark over “Opposition’s attempts in the Rajya Sabha to hijack the bipartisan nature of the issue for credit in the fight against corruption in judiciary”.

It was in the backdrop of acceptance of this controversial motion and its hasty mentioning in the Rajya Sabha that House Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar had to resign.

Dhankhar, while citing provisions of the Judges Inquiry Act, 1968, said if a motion for removal of a judge was presented in both Houses the same day, the right of the Rajya Sabha Chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker to admit or reject the motions was not there as the motion became property of the House.

Dhankhar further cited the law on the motions received in both Houses on the same day, saying: “Where a motion has been presented to both Houses the same day, a three-member committee to probe the grounds on which removal of the judge has been prayed will not be constituted unless the motion has been admitted in both Houses. Once motions are admitted, the committee will be jointly formed by the RS Chairman and the LS Speaker."

Conventionally in cases of motions in both Houses, the removal proceedings took place in the House whose presiding officer was senior (Dhankhar in this case). The Justice Varma removal proceedings in the RS on an Opposition-backed motion riled the government, leading to circumstances in which Dhankhar had to resign.

Now, the government will, as decided earlier, bring the motion against Justice Varma in the LS and Speaker Birla will constitute the three-member probe committee, which is mandated to comprise the CJI or a Supreme Court judge; Chief Justice of High Court and an eminent jurist.

The Tribune was the first to highlight why an Opposition-sponsored removal motion in the Rajya Sabha was a problem for the government–it would have meant removal proceedings in the RS and would have placed the entire narrative against corruption in judiciary in the realm of the Opposition, keeping the government out because the RS motion to remove Justice Varma, which Dhankhar accepted, was solely signed by Opposition MPs.

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