Nearly a year after unaccounted cash was allegedly recovered from his official residence in Delhi, Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma wrote to President Droupadi Murmu on April 9, conveying his decision to step down from office. “While I do not propose to burden your august office with the reasons that have constrained me to submit this missive, it is with deep anguish that I hereby tender my resignation,” Varma said in his letter. “It has been an honour to serve in this office,” he added.
The decision brought to a close months of mounting scrutiny, going back to the night of March 14, 2025. Then, a judge of the Delhi High Court, Varma, found himself in the eye of the storm after firefighters responding to a blaze at his official residence allegedly discovered stacks of half-burnt currency notes in a storeroom on the premises.
In the weeks that followed, the Supreme Court Collegium, then headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna, repatriated him to his parent High Court in Allahabad and divested him of judicial work, even as an in-house inquiry was set in motion.
A three-judge committee eventually concluded that Varma and his family members exercised “covert or active control” over the storeroom, and that cash had indeed been recovered from the premises. This, the panel said, “belied the trust” reposed in him as a constitutional court judge, and warranted the initiation of impeachment proceedings against him.
Acting on these findings and following Varma’s refusal to resign, then CJI Khanna wrote to the Prime Minister and the President on May 8, 2025, enclosing the report and recommending the initiation of removal proceedings against him under Article 124(4) of the Constitution and the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968. The recommendation paved the way for the impeachment process. But before a Lok Sabha-constituted inquiry committee could submit its findings, Varma stepped down.
Also read| Truth and transparency: On the judiciary
On February 13, 2026, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal informed the Lok Sabha that the office of the CJI had received 8,630 complaints against sitting judges between 2016 and 2025. The data indicated a sharp rise in complaints over the period, increasing by more than 51%, from 729 in 2016 to 1,102 in 2025.
Beyond that, no more details were given about whether these complaints pertained to corruption, sexual misconduct, or any other illegal activity. Neither did the minister say which High Court had the highest complaints, nor what was being done to address the complaints.
Prashant Bhushan, a Delhi-based advocate and convenor of the non-profit Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms, says there is opacity in the system because “inquiry reports are not made public, and there is little disclosure on proceedings against judges or the action taken.”
He adds that what makes judicial corruption difficult to address “is the extent to which it remains shielded from public scrutiny”. This is in part because of “the fear of contempt of court” and “the near absence of any effective mechanism to hold errant judges to account.” He says even if a judge is to be impeached, the process starts with at least 100 members in the Lok Sabha or 50 in the Rajya Sabha, “making it contingent on political will rather than the merits of the complaint”.
An activist asks for more
At a café in Delhi’s Khan Market, Saurav Das, a Delhi-based legal journalist and Right to Information (RTI) activist, sits with files of documents to show. He found the Minister’s February 13 parliamentary response “conspicuously incomplete” and filed an RTI request with the Supreme Court Registry, the administrative arm of the SC.
He sought year-wise aggregate data on the 8,630 complaints, including those pending, disposed of, found to be mala fide or motivated, as well as those forwarded to High Courts for appropriate action. “Publishing figures without any clarity on how complaints were handled risks creating the impression that nothing was done. This can undermine trust in the judiciary,” he says.
In a response seen by The Hindu, S. K. Kamesh Nookala, Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), stated that “necessary action” had been taken on complaints against sitting judges by the office of the CJI over the past decade (2016–2025), and that the remaining information was “spread over numerous files”, the collation of which would “disproportionately divert” the court’s resources. Exemptions under Section 8 of the RTI Act, including those relating to privacy and confidentiality, were also invoked to withhold the information.
Das is persistent. After his request was rejected, he filed a first appeal before the designated appellate authority, seeking permission to inspect the relevant records under Section 2(1)(j) of the RTI Act. The appeal, however, was dismissed. “A one-line response stating only that ‘necessary action’ was taken is paternalistic and defeats the purpose of the RTI Act. I will now prefer an appeal before the Central Information Commission,” he says.
S. Muralidhar, former Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, says exemptions under Section 8 of the RTI Act cannot be invoked to withhold information where requests do not pertain to individual judges. “There is no justification for withholding aggregate data on the number of complaints and their status. Such information can be disclosed without revealing identities,” he says.
In fact, Madan B. Lokur, former Supreme Court judge, says, “Numbers are not particularly important, since many complaints are frivolous or malicious, often filed by disgruntled litigants. What matters more is how many complaints were serious and how they were dealt with”.
In Parliament
An analysis by The Hindu shows that from January 2011 to March 2026, there were 48 written parliamentary questions, raised across party lines, seeking information from the Law Ministry on complaints against judges and their outcomes. Of these, 29 were in the Lok Sabha and 19 in the Rajya Sabha. Data was disclosed in only five instances—two in the Lok Sabha and three in the Rajya Sabha.
In many responses, the Law Ministry stated that it “does not maintain records” and has “no mechanism to monitor complaints” against judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, and that such complaints are dealt with under the judiciary’s in-house procedure. With respect to complaints against judges of the district judiciary, the Ministry said that administrative control over them rests with the concerned High Courts and that it does not maintain such records.
Where data has been disclosed, parliamentary responses indicate that complaints are routed through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), a public portal through which citizens can raise grievances relating to the judiciary. These are then forwarded to the CJI or the Chief Justices of the respective High Courts.
For instance, in response to a question by DMK MP S. Gnanathiraviam and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Malook Nagar on whether instances of judicial corruption had increased, then Law Minister Kiren Rijiju told the Lok Sabha on April 1, 2022, that 1,631 such complaints were received through CPGRAMS between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2021, and were forwarded to the CJI or the Chief Justices of High Courts in accordance with the in-house mechanism.
“Such sparse disclosures reflect a deep-rooted culture of opacity within the Indian judiciary, particularly in its administrative functioning,” says Prashant Reddy T., legal academic and co-author of Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts. “RTI applications filed with the Supreme Court and High Court registries seeking information on complaints against judges are routinely rejected on arbitrary and vague grounds,” he adds. “Even seemingly innocuous information, such as budget documents and financial audit reports, is often withheld.”
In Focus Podcast | Was the SC’s move to ‘ban’ the NCERT textbook an instance of judicial censorship?
A post and its consequences
On a March evening, before the heat hit Tiruchirappalli, Rishi A. Kumar, 22, sat at his desk in his law school dorm, fluorescent-streaked notes scattered across it. He began writing a Substack post critiquing a Supreme Court order issued a couple of weeks earlier, expecting it to travel no further than a small circle of friends and professors.
Within days, the post went viral on social media. “I wrote it during a study break in the middle of my exams because I believed the direction could have a chilling effect on even legitimate criticism of the judiciary,” says Rishi, a final-year student at Tamil Nadu National Law University (TNNLU).
On February 26, a three-judge Bench led by CJI Surya Kant took suo motu cognisance and ordered the immediate seizure of physical copies and takedown of digital versions of a Class VIII Social Science textbook published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). The textbook included a section on “corruption in the judiciary” as part of a chapter titled “The role of the judiciary in our society”.
The court observed that the references reflected a “discernible underlying agenda” to denigrate the judiciary and prima facie constituted criminal contempt of court. It accordingly issued show-cause notices to the NCERT Director and the Secretary of the Department of School Education and Literacy at the Ministry of Education, asking why contempt proceedings should not be initiated.
NCERT subsequently tendered an “unconditional and unqualified apology” and withdrew the textbook from circulation. The court, however, remained unconvinced. Taking exception to those involved in preparing the chapter — author Michel Danino, educationist Suparna Diwakar, and legal researcher Alok Prasanna Kumar — it observed that they “either do not possess reasonable knowledge about the judiciary” or had “knowingly misrepresented facts” to project a “negative image.” It went on to direct all government-funded curriculum and educational projects across States, Union Territories, and universities to “dissociate” from them forthwith.
In his blog post, Kumar pointed to “data”, suggesting “corruption at various levels of the judiciary.” He wrote that “the more the judiciary tries to suppress discussion of its failures, the more distrust it generates.”
Over a phone call, he says, “Law school trains you to think critically and question public institutions as an essential feature of democracy. My endeavour was to do just that.” Then, after a pause: “Corruption in the judiciary has long been an institutional concern, one that has, over time, been acknowledged by members of the judiciary themselves.”
According to Transparency International, nearly one in three Indians who interacted with courts in 2020 reported paying a bribe, while 38% relied on personal connections to navigate the system. In June last year, speaking at the U.K. Supreme Court, former CJI B.R. Gavai acknowledged instances of corruption and misconduct within the judiciary, cautioning that they could undermine public confidence in the institution.
Kumar says the post also drew a surge of criticism. “The messages turned hostile very quickly, and many warned me against writing critically about the judiciary,” he recalls. Some friends, he adds, said they avoided such criticism altogether for fear of jeopardising their careers. Even then, he says, he was unprepared for what followed.
A week later, he woke up to an email from the university administration requesting that he take down the post, citing concerns about the institution’s reputation. “I was taken aback to learn that judges were calling up my university about the post,” Kumar says. But he refused to take down the post, maintaining that it was written in his personal capacity and did not reflect any institutional affiliation. In his response, he said the university did not “own” his “voice or conscience.”
TNNLU Registrar S.M. Balakrishnan says the email was sent as an “advisory” after the administration received several “intimidating” calls from members of the legal fraternity. “ We were initially concerned about his academic progression and future enrolment at the Bar, but after Rishi chose to stand by his views, we reassessed the situation and decided to support him,” he says, in an email.
Kumar’s post detailing the university’s communication drew widespread support on social media, including from prominent lawyers, journalists, and activists.
The three academics have since approached the apex court, seeking to be “heard” and to have the “blacklisting” order set aside.
Abhay S. Oka, former Supreme Court judge, echoing the observations of English judge Lord Denning (1899-1999), says contempt powers should not be invoked to uphold the court’s dignity. “The dignity of the institution must rest on surer foundations. However, where there is clear defiance of its orders, the court must act firmly,” he adds.
While acknowledging that meaningful, long-term judicial reforms hinge on greater transparency, Muralidhar says the Supreme Court must adopt a standard operating procedure for publishing in-house inquiry reports to ensure that the process is neither left to discretion nor perceived as arbitrary.
Oka, however, cautions that unlike bureaucrats and politicians, judges do not have the privilege of publicly defending themselves. “If a complaint is registered against a judge, they cannot respond or place an explanation in the public domain. Any institutional reform must recognise this constraint and ensure that the reputations of honest judges are not irreparably damaged,” he says.
aaratrikabhaumik@thehindu.co.in
Edited by Sunalini Mathew
