Discuss the constitutional and statutory mechanism for removal of a High Court/Supreme Court judge in India. In light of the Justice Yashwant Varma case, examine the adequacy of this process.

Judges of the higher judiciary can be removed only for "proved misbehaviour or incapacity" under Article 124(4), applied to High Court judges through Article 218 — a deliberately difficult process designed to protect judicial independence from ordinary political majorities [1].

Constitutional framework

• Article 124(4): removal by Presidential order after an address by both Houses, passed by a majority of total membership and two-thirds of members present and voting [1].
• Article 124(5) empowers Parliament to lay down the procedure — done through the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 [2].

Statutory procedure (1968 Act)

• Motion signed by 100 Lok Sabha or 50 Rajya Sabha members, admitted at the presiding officer's discretion [1].
• Presiding officer constitutes a three-member committee — a Supreme Court judge, a High Court Chief Justice and a distinguished jurist — which frames charges and hears the judge's defence [1].
• Only if charges are "proved" does the motion proceed to voting in both Houses.

The Varma case as a test

• Following the March 2025 discovery of unexplained burnt currency at his official residence, an in-house CJI-appointed panel first indicted Justice Varma; a statutory committee constituted by Speaker Om Birla later found all three Articles of Charge proved, its report being tabled in Parliament on 12 August 2026 [3].

Examining adequacy

• Strengths: layered scrutiny — in-house probe, judicial review, statutory inquiry — ensured due process without executive interference.
• Gaps: the in-house mechanism lacks statutory backing; evidence preservation was found deficient; the process spanned over a year; and resignation before the final vote leaves removal infructuous. No judge has ever actually been removed under this route — the Law Commission's 195th Report had proposed a comprehensive judicial accountability framework precisely for such deadlock [4].

The mechanism is constitutionally sound but institutionally slow. A statutory, graded accountability system offering censure or withdrawal of work short of removal, with a time-bound inquiry, would make accountability real without diluting independence — reconciling Article 124's twin promises of an independent and an answerable judiciary.