Allahabad High Court Justice Yashwant Varma’s resignation from the post is only the third instance of a sitting judge resigning from the post in the face of impending impeachment.

While impeachment is designed as the highest mechanism of judicial accountability, it has rarely run its full course.

The furthest such proceedings progressed was in the case of Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court.

Accused of misappropriation of funds, Justice Sen had faced an inquiry committee that found him guilty of misconduct. In 2011, the Rajya Sabha passed the motion seeking his removal with overwhelming support. However, before the Lok Sabha could take up the motion for a final vote, Justice Sen resigned.

The Lok Sabha impeachment proceedings were then dropped as infructuous. He had retained post-retirement benefits, since the law does not strip those from a judge when he resigns before removal.

A similar trajectory unfolded in the case of Justice PD Dinakaran of the Sikkim High Court.

Proceedings were initiated against him in 2011 over allegations of judicial misconduct progressed to the stage where an inquiry committee had been constituted. However, before parliament could consider the question of removal, Justice Dinakaran resigned from office, citing a lack of faith in the impartiality of the inquiry process.

This resulted in the impeachment process ending automatically and no criminal case was pursued.

Justice Varma’s resignation now places his case within the line of precedents where impeachment proceedings against judges gathered momentum, but ultimately ended before parliament could deliver a final verdict.

Notably, Justice Varma has also withdrawn from the Judges Inquiry Committee set up by parliament. He alleged in a detailed letter that the inquiry denied him basic fairness and reversed the burden of proof.

The episode traces back to the evening of March 14, 2025, when a fire broke out in a storeroom at Justice Varma’s official residence at Tughlaq Crescent in Delhi. Firefighters who responded to the incident reportedly recovered burnt bundles of currency from the premises.

At the time, Justice Varma and his wife were travelling during the Holi break, while only his daughter and elderly mother were present at home.

A video that later surfaced showing charred currency notes in the aftermath of the fire quickly went viral, fueling allegations of corruption against the sitting judge.

Justice Varma had denied the accusations from the outset, maintaining that neither he nor his family had any connection with the cash and suggesting that he was being falsely implicated.

The controversy soon moved into formal institutional scrutiny.

Then Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna initiated an in-house inquiry in March 2025 and constituted a three-member committee to examine the matter.

After receiving the committee’s report in May 2025, the CJI had asked Justice Varma to either resign or face impeachment proceedings. At that stage, Justice Varma had declined to step down.

Administrative consequences subsequently followed. He was transferred from the Delhi High Court back to his parent Allahabad High Court and was stripped of judicial work pending further action.

The matter then moved into the parliamentary domain, with Members of Parliament initiating proceedings seeking his removal.

In August 2025, the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla constituted a three-member Judges Inquiry Committee under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 to examine the allegations and determine whether they amounted to “misbehaviour” warranting impeachment.

Justice Varma had challenged aspects of the proceedings before the Supreme Court, arguing that the inquiry committee had been constituted without the procedural steps involving both Houses of Parliament.

In January this year, the Supreme Court declined to interfere, holding that the statutory framework had not been violated and allowing the inquiry process to continue.

The Judges Inquiry Committee subsequently began recording evidence earlier this year.

On April 9, a little more than a year after all of this began, Justice Varma wrote to President Droupadi Murmu tendering his resignation from the office of judge of the Allahabad High Court.

In his letter, he said he did not wish to burden the office with the reasons that compelled him to step down. He added that he was resigning “with deep anguish” and described it as an honour to have served on the Bench.

With his resignation, the impeachment process that had been set in motion has now come to a halt.

Once a judge resigns, the constitutional process of impeachment becomes largely infructuous.

The Judges Inquiry Committee examining the charges against Justice Varma had been constituted for the limited purpose of assisting parliament in determining whether removal from office was warranted. With the judge no longer holding judicial office, the process loses its immediate constitutional purpose.

Resignation, however, does not necessarily close the chapter on the allegations themselves.

While sitting High Court judges enjoy constitutional protections tied to their office, stepping down removes that status.

In principle, this leaves open the possibility of criminal investigation by law enforcement authorities, should they choose to pursue it.

The episode perhaps closes with key questions unresolved in the public mind. The viral footage of charred currency bundles that first brought the controversy into public view remains, even now, the clearest image of a case that ends without definitive answers.