The Removal Machinery Survives Its Test: Justice Varma's Challenge to the Inquiry Committee Dismissed

The episode tested India's only constitutional mechanism for judicial removal in its modern form: allegations arising from the 2025 cash-discovery controversy, an in-house inquiry, the withdrawal of judicial work, a removal motion admitted in the Lok Sabha, and the Speaker's constitution of the statutory committee — a judge of the Supreme Court, a Chief Justice of a High Court and a distinguished jurist — under the 1968 Act. The judge's writ petition challenged the committee's very constitution.

The Key Question Before the Court

Was the Speaker's constitution of the Section 3(2) inquiry committee open to challenge — or did the statutory process validly commence?

The Statute's Course Upheld

The Court dismissed the challenge, holding that the Speaker, in admitting the motion and constituting the committee, acted within the jurisdiction the Judges (Inquiry) Act confers. The scheme's design — political initiation strictly channelled into a judicial-dominated inquiry, with removal only upon proved misbehaviour and parliamentary majorities — protects judges from caprice precisely by letting the inquiry run; interdicting the committee at its birth would invert that protection into immunity. The statutory process, the Court held, must take its course, with the judge's defences available before the committee itself.

What Followed

With the challenge dismissed, the inquiry proceeded — and events outran the removal calendar: the judge resigned office on 9 April 2026, and the committee's report was laid in Parliament in August 2026. The episode thus ended short of a removal vote, but the ruling's institutional work remains: the 1968 Act's machinery, long criticised as unworkable, demonstrated that it can be set in motion and judicially defended.

What the Court Actually Held

• The challenge to the inquiry committee constituted under Section 3(2) of the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 was dismissed.
• The Lok Sabha Speaker acted within jurisdiction in constituting the committee.
• The statutory inquiry was cleared to proceed, with the judge's defences preserved before it.

Why This Judgment Matters

• It is the defining modern precedent on the removal mechanism's commencement — the committee stage is not judicially stillborn.
• It balances judicial independence with accountability: protection lies in the inquiry's rigour, not in preventing inquiry.
• The episode — in-house process, statutory committee, resignation, report — now maps the accountability pathway end to end.
• It will frame every future debate on judicial-conduct machinery, including proposals for standing structures.

What Should Observers Take Away From the Judgment?

For the Bar and Court-Watchers

• Challenges to removal proceedings now face this precedent at the threshold: jurisdictional regularity, once shown, carries the committee stage.

For the System's Designers

• The 1968 Act worked — slowly and under strain; the episode is the strongest recent data point in the standing-mechanism debate.

Key Takeaways

Frequently Asked Questions

Once a removal motion is admitted, the Section 3(2) committee — a Supreme Court judge, a High Court Chief Justice and a distinguished jurist — investigates the charges and reports whether misbehaviour or incapacity is proved; only on a proved finding can Parliament vote on removal.

Because the Speaker acted within the Act's jurisdiction in admitting the motion and constituting the committee — the judge's protections lie in the inquiry's process, not in preventing it.

The judge resigned on 9 April 2026 before any removal vote; the committee's report was nonetheless placed before Parliament in August 2026.

Conclusion