"History will record the unfairness": Justice Yashwant Varma withdraws from JIC inquiry

Allahabad High Court Justice Yashwant Varma, who tendered his resignation from the post to the President, has withdrawn from the ongoing impeachment proceedings.

In a 13-page letter to the Judges Inquiry Committee under Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, Justice Varma alleged that he has been denied basic fairness and due process and that the burden of proof has been effectively reversed without any foundational case being made out against him.

"Despite repeated requests, this best evidence that could shed light on the entire incident has been kept away. My attempts at obtaining even a clone or copy of the same has consistently been declined," Justice Varma said in the letter.

A fire at Justice Varma's house on the evening of March 14, 2025. had allegedly led to the recovery of unaccounted cash by the fire fighters. 

At the time, Justice Varma and his wife were traveling in Madhya Pradesh. Only his daughter and aged mother were at home when the fire broke out. A video later surfaced showing bundles of cash burning in the fire.

The incident led to allegations of corruption against Justice Varma, who denied the accusations and said that it appeared to be a conspiracy to frame him.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna (who has retired since) then initiated an in-house probe into the allegations and set up a three-member committee on March 22 last year to conduct the inquiry. The CJI, on receiving the report of the in-house committee, asked Justice Varma to resign or face impeachment proceedings.

However, since Justice Varma declined to quit, CJI Khanna forwarded the report and the judge's response on it to the President of India and the Prime Minister for removal of the judge. Following the allegations, Justice Varma was sent back to his parent High Court from the Delhi High Court. His judicial work was taken away pending further action.

In August 2025, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla initiated the process to remove Justice Varma from his position by constituting a three-member panel to probe the allegations against him. During the pendency of the proceedings, Justice Verma resigned as judge on Thursday.

In a letter to the panel, Justice Varma said that despite a "public vilification" since the start of the controversy, he had remained hopeful that the allegations against him would be looked into appropriately and fairly.

"Regrettably, the proceedings that have followed have been concerned almost exclusively with establishing the bare facts that a storeroom existed in the allotted premises and the cash was found there. From these facts alone, inferences of my culpability appear to have been drawn," he wrote in the matter.

He alleged that the witness examination by the inquiry panel did not take place in his presence nor was he afforded any opportunity to cross-examine them. Out of the 54 witnesses who appeared before the committee, 27 were dropped without any explanation being furnished, as per Justice Varma.

"Many of those dropped were witnesses whose testimony was not unfavourable to me, and which would have provided a more complete picture of the events," the letter further said.

Justice Varma argued that even if strict rules of evidence were assumed to be inapplicable in the proceedings under the Judges Inquiry Act, that too would not justify ignoring foundational principles known to be part of the common law.

"In any event, the evidence that was actually led falls far short of establishing even a prima facie case on any of the three charges. In proceedings of this nature, which seek to determine whether a sitting judge is guilty of misbehaviour warranting removal, it is incumbent upon those prosecuting the charges to first establish a foundational case through credible evidence. Only then can any burden shift to the judge to lead defence evidence. Here, that threshold has not been crossed on any charge. The standard of proof, as noted by previous Judges' Inquiry Committees, is akin to a criminal trial - beyond reasonable doubt," the letter added.

A rational and fair inquiry would have recognised the complete absence of a prima facie case and dropped the proceedings at this stage, rather than requiring me to prove multiple negatives and disprove unsubstantiated presumptions, Justice Varma further said.

"In these circumstances, I would be doing myself and the institution the greatest disservice by continuing to participate in the present proceedings, thereby legitimising a process that calls upon me to answer the unanswerable - where did the money come from. I therefore withdraw from these proceedings with immediate effect and have instructed my advocates accordingly. I withdraw with the deepest sadness, conscious of the gravity of my decision and with the hope that history will one day record the unfairness with which a sitting High Court Judge was treated and that has marked this entire episode from its inception," the letter said.

[Read Letter]