Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s decision to table the inquiry committee report on former Allahabad High Court judge Justice Yashwant Verma when Parliament resumes sitting on July 20 has opened up an unprecedented constitutional conundrum.
following him Resignation on 9th AprilJustice Verma renounced the official perks and privileges attached to judicial office, stopped drawing a judicial salary, and revived his nomination with the Bar Council, enabling him to legally resume private legal practice. His pension and other terminal benefits have not been released yet.
If Justice Verma is no longer a judge, can Parliament consider removing him through impeachment? And if he continues to hold judicial office – a prerequisite for impeachment – how can that constitutional post co-exist with his restored eligibility to resume private legal practice and the surrender of almost every privilege and responsibility attached to judicial office?
These twin questions lie at the core of an unprecedented constitutional paradox Birla announced this on Saturday That the report of the three-member inquiry committee probing the allegations against Justice Verma will be presented in Parliament during the monsoon session.
The investigation is linked to allegations of unaccounted cash being found at the official residence of Justice Verma in Delhi in March 2025, when he was serving as a judge of the Delhi High Court. While the judge consistently denied any knowledge of or ownership of the money, calling the allegations a conspiracy to defame him and insisting that neither he nor any of his family members had kept cash on the site, an in-house inquiry panel of the Supreme Court found his explanations unsatisfactory, after which the then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna recommended action to the executive.
Due to this, expulsion proceedings started in Parliament, notices were sent to both the houses in July 2025. While the Lok Sabha accepted the motion and moved to set up an inquiry committee, the Rajya Sabha refused to accept a parallel resolution citing procedural weaknesses. However, Justice Verma resigned in April while the investigation was ongoing.
constitutional contradiction
The Speaker’s announcement, nearly three months after Justice Verma resigned with immediate effect, has reignited a legal debate that goes far beyond the fate of a judge. At stake is the constitutional architecture governing judicial resignations, parliamentary removal proceedings, and the extent to which a constitutional process can survive after a constitutional body has clearly done its job.
Unlike previous impeachment proceedings against judges, Parliament now finds itself navigating uncharted constitutional waters.
On the one hand, there is the 1978 Constitution Bench judgment of the Supreme Court which treats the resignation of a High Court judge as a unilateral constitutional act which does not require approval by any authority and is effective from a date chosen by the judge himself. On the other hand, the government’s apparent decision to continue the parliamentary process is based, inter alia, on the fact that the judge’s resignation has not yet been formally acted upon by the executive and his name is visible on the official website of the Allahabad High Court.
All signs point to an exit
Yet, beyond the continued presence of his name on court rosters, virtually every objective indicator points in the opposite direction.
Justice Verma Since his resignation he has not served as a judge. He has handed over the official facilities, vehicles and other facilities available to the sitting judge of the High Court. Internal correspondence within the Allahabad High Court registry accessed by Hindustan Times shows that he has also been issued the necessary no objection certificates after he renounced official properties and benefits associated with judicial office.
Significantly, Justice Verma has resumed his nomination to the Bar Council, making him eligible to resume private legal practice at any time under the existing regulatory framework – a situation that appears fundamentally inconsistent with holding constitutional office as a sitting High Court judge.
Besides, his salary has also stopped. His pension has not started. Their general provident fund and group insurance benefits have not been distributed, reflecting an administrative situation that is itself caught in a dilemma.
The resulting picture presents a constitutional paradox. For all practical and institutional purposes, the judge appears to have abandoned his post. Yet Parliament is apparently preparing to consider whether the post he has vacated should be taken away through the extraordinary procedure of removal.
The constitutional background further sharpens that contradiction.
Article 217 of the Constitution allows a High Court judge to resign “by writing under his hand addressed to the President”. Unlike government servants, whose resignations usually become effective when accepted by the competent authority, the Constitution does not contemplate the acceptance of the resignation of a High Court judge.
What did the Constitution Bench say?
That distinction was officially explained by a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in the case Union of India v. Gopal Chandra Mishra (1978), a judgment that has occupied center stage in the discussions surrounding Justice Verma’s resignation.
A five-judge bench held that a High Court judge enjoys a “unilateral constitutional right” to resign and the general principles governing service resignations have no application because a judge is not an employee of the executive but a constitutional functionary. The majority judgment specifically observed that where a judge resigns with immediate effect, the constitutional relationship is severed with effect from a date chosen by the judge himself. Assent by the President is not a constitutional requirement.
The decision separated constitutional office from general public employment, emphasizing that the President performs a constitutional function in the appointment of judges and is not an employer in the traditional sense.
The decision came in the context of a judge’s demand to withdraw the potential resignation before it could take effect. The Constitution Bench held that such a potential resignation remains “dormant” or “silent” until the date specified by the judge, and hence can be withdrawn before that date. But once that chosen date arrives, the resignation becomes automatically effective because the judge has, by his constitutional function, severed the office.
That constitutional formulation has gained renewed importance as Justice Verma’s resignation letter clearly states that it is being submitted “with immediate effect”.
The following constitutional question is straightforward, although it may not have an answer.
Can the removal process survive resignation?
If resignation under Article 217 becomes effective immediately, can the mechanisms established under Articles 124(4), 217(1)(b) and the Judges (Inquiry) Act, which exist only to take a decision on removal of a sitting judge, continue to function even after the judge leaves office?
The scheme of the Judges (Investigation) Act appears to be specifically directed towards one constitutional outcome: removal.
The statute creates an elaborate fact-finding mechanism to determine whether Parliament should recommend the removal of a judge on the grounds of proven misconduct or incompetence. It does not contemplate any disciplinary penalty less than expulsion, nor does it explicitly provide for continuation of proceedings after the constitutional post ceases to exist.
According to several judicial precedents, the constitutional expression “removal” necessarily presupposes the continued existence of the office to be vacated. Once the resignation becomes effective, the subject matter of removal itself disappears because Parliament cannot remove a person from an office he no longer holds.
Examples tell a different story
When Justice PD Dhinakaran resigned in 2011 during the pendency of impeachment proceedings, the inquiry committee constituted under the Judges (Inquiry) Act was dissolved and ultimately no report was placed before Parliament.
Similarly, proceedings against Justice Soumitra Sen effectively ended following his resignation as judge of the Calcutta High Court, despite the Rajya Sabha having already adopted a resolution recommending his removal.
However, Justice Verma’s case presents an important procedural difference.
Unlike earlier cases, the inquiry committee continued its work even after the resignation and submitted a sealed report to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha in May.
Whether Parliament merely tables that report as part of the institutional record, or proceeds with removal proceedings, may determine the constitutional significance of the Speaker’s declaration.
Some government officials have described the issue as a legal “grey area”, pointing to the fact that the resignation has not yet been formally processed and the Allahabad High Court website continues to list him among the serving judges.
Yet that situation in itself raises new constitutional questions.
If the absence of executive action is sufficient to suspend the legal consequences of resignation, is it comfortable with the Constitution Bench’s conclusion that resignation under Article 217 is a unilateral constitutional act not dependent on the assent of the President?
Equally, if Justice Verma continues to hold constitutional office despite his resignation, how does this square off with the restoration of his enrollment as an advocate, which now enables him under the applicable regulatory framework to resume private legal practice at any time – a designation that is ordinarily incompatible with serving as a sitting High Court judge?
So the Speaker’s announcement is more than reviving an investigation. This has reopened unresolved questions about the constitutional meaning of resignation, the extent of parliamentary removal powers, and the point at which a judge actually ceases to hold judicial office.
Should the House decide to move ahead with merely presenting the report and attempt to proceed with Justice Verma’s removal despite Justice Verma’s resignation, India could witness the first official judicial test of whether Parliament’s impeachment jurisdiction survives the constitutional execution of the judge it seeks to remove.
Until then, the Speaker’s decision confronts the country with an unusual constitutional spectacle – a judge who has in practice left his office, but whose legal status remains the subject of one of the most consequential constitutional debates in recent years.
