The in-house inquiry mechanism for judicial accountability lacks statutory backing. Critically examine, with reference to recent controversies involving sitting judges.

The in-house procedure, adopted by the Supreme Court in 1999, lets the CJI refer complaints against a sitting judge to a peer committee. Unlike the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 [1], it rests only on a judicial resolution — a gap the Justice Yashwant Varma episode has laid bare.

Where the absence of statutory backing hurts

• No legal force to findings: the committee can at most advise resignation or the CJI can write to the President; removal still needs a special majority in both Houses under Article 124(4) read with Article 217 [2].
• No codified standards of judicial misbehaviour, no defined evidentiary rules and no appeal — Justice Varma challenged paragraphs 5(b) and 7 of the 1999 procedure as unconstitutional [3].
• Opacity: proceedings are treated as wholly confidential, so outcomes depend on institutional goodwill rather than enforceable duty.
• The Varma inquiry showed evidence at the site was not secured or preserved before lawful sealing — a lapse a statutory scheme with prescribed procedure could have prevented [5].

Why it still serves a purpose

• It fills the vacuum between inaction and impeachment: no Indian judge — Ramaswami, Sen or Dinakaran — has ever actually been removed by Parliament.
• It protects judicial independence by keeping the first probe within the judiciary, away from executive or legislative pressure.
• The Supreme Court in August 2025 held the procedure has legal sanctity and is not a parallel removal mechanism, dismissing Justice Varma's plea [3].
• It works as a credible trigger: the in-house finding fed the motion signed by over 200 MPs, the Speaker's statutory committee — whose power the Court upheld in January 2026 [4] — and the report tabled on 12 August 2026 holding all three charges proved [5].

The mechanism is therefore useful but under-institutionalised. Placing it on a statutory footing — through the 2nd ARC's proposed National Judicial Council [6] and a revived Judicial Standards and Accountability framework [7] — would let accountability and independence reinforce, rather than trade off against, each other.