Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced a three-member inquiry committee to probe the charges against Justice Yashwant Varma, an Allahabad High Court judge, from whose house wads of burnt currency notes were recovered in March.
Birla accepted a motion signed by 146 MPs seeking the impeachment of Justice Yashwant Varma.k
The three-member committee includes Justice Arvind Kumar of the Supreme Court, Justice Manindra Mohan Srivastava, Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and Senior Advocate of Karnataka High Court B.V. Acharya.
The Speaker informed the Lok Sabha that he received a memorandum from BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad and a delegation of MPs belonging to several political parties for the removal of the High Court judge. “146 MPs from both Treasury and Opposition benches have signed in it,” Birla said.
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.
Wads of half-burnt currency notes were found at the official residence of Justice Varma in Delhi when a fire broke out there on March 14. He was subsequently transferred to Allahabad High Court from Delhi High Court, and the Supreme Court constituted a committee to look into the allegation.
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