Congress began collecting signatures to remove Justice Varma last week to deny government ‘sole credit'
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.
At the meeting, according to those aware of the discussion, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, senior leader and Rajya Sabha member P. Chidambaram and the party's chief whip in the Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh among others felt that Rajya Sabha should not stand as a mute spectator to the process. The government had reached out to all sides for a bipartisan motion to be moved in the Lok Sabha.
The Congress then started the process of collecting signatures from the other Opposition parties. 'This process had been going on since Thursday (July 17, 2025) last week,' a senior Congress leader said.
Barring the Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party MPs, who were not available for various reasons, other Opposition leaders signed the motion. A total of 63 signatures were collected. The motion was submitted around 2 p.m. to Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar's office, who, around 4 p.m., informed the house about it. He went on to describe the procedure, asking the Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha, P.C. Mody, to enquire with the Lok Sabha about the submission of a similar motion and proceed accordingly.
In cases where the motion is submitted on the same day in the two Houses, a joint statutory committee is constituted to investigate the matter. A notice for the removal of a judge has to be signed by no fewer than 100 members in the Lok Sabha and 50 in the Rajya Sabha.
The three-page motion had signatures from members of the Opposition. It sought Justice Verma's removal on three grounds – 'financial misconduct and lack of transparency', 'unnatural conduct and concealment' and 'breach of public trust and probity', quoting from the Supreme Court's internal committee's report that investigated the incident. It said that the Supreme Court report proved misbehaviour on the part of Justice Varma as defined by Article 124 (4) of the Constitution and thus recommended his removal and further investigations by a statutory committee.
At 4.30 p.m., the Business Advisory Committee, which convened minutes after the Chairman's announcement on the floor of the House, Leader of the House J.P. Nadda and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju were missing. When Chairman Mr. Dhankhar enquired about their absence, Union Minister L. Murugan reportedly informed that they had been called away for an urgent meeting.
Mr. Dhankhar had articulated both in public and private that the cash recovery at Justice Varma's residence required a thorough probe into where and how the money came from. He was also, till his last day in office, on Monday (July 21, 2025), authenticating the signatures on a motion moved by the Opposition in December last year against the Allahabad High Court Judge Justice Shekhar Yadav for allegedly making a hate speech.
On Sunday (July 20, 2025), according to sources, he met Aam Aadmi Party MP Raghav Chadha and, on Monday (July 20, 2025), Congress MP G.C. Chandrashekhar to get them to authenticate their signatures. He had informed the house on Monday (July 20, 2025) that the process of verification of the signatures is going on. Later, around 5 p.m., he told an Opposition MP that 51 out of the 55 signatures had been authenticated. The motion thus met the minimum required number of members to be accepted.
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