New Delhi, Jul 21 (PTI) The BJP on Monday made a rapid move to collect signatures of its Rajya Sabha MPs and those from its allies to file a notice for the removal of high court judge Yashwant Varma, hours after an opposition-sponsored notice was submitted to Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Many MPs from the BJP and its allies turned up at Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s office in Parliament complex to sign the notice, sources said, as top government managers spearheaded the move.
Though there was no official word on the development, the sources said the opposition-sponsored notice in the Rajya Sabha jolted the ruling alliance into action as it did not like to be left out of the exercise in the Upper House.
While a few ministers spearheaded an all-party move on similar lines in the Lok Sabha, there was little advance indication that the opposition was planning to submit a similar notice in the Rajya Sabha.
BJP sources said they had no idea about the opposition’s unilateral move in the Upper House as they cited their own bi-partisan exercise in the Lok Sabha.
The bipartisan delegation submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla a notice bearing the signatures of 145 Lok Sabha members for the removal of Justice Varma under Articles 124, 217 and 218 of the Constitution.
The signatories to the notice included Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, BJP leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad and Anurag Thakur, NCP-SP leader Supriya Sule, Congress leaders K C Venugopal and K Suresh, DMK leader T R Baalu, RSP member N K Premachandran and IUML member E T Mohammed Basheer among others.
A notice signed by 63 opposition members of the Upper House was submitted to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar.
Wads of burnt currency notes were recovered from the official residence of Justice Varma in Delhi in March this year. He was later transferred to the Allahabad High Court.
Though Justice Varma has denied any wrongdoing, an in-house inquiry panel constituted by the then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna concluded that the judge and his family members had covert or active control over the storeroom where the cash was found, proving his misconduct serious enough to seek his removal. PTI KR RT
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