On the Yashwant Varma probe’s future

The resignation of Justice Yashwant Varma has revived a question Indian law has not answered satisfactorily in the past 14 years. When a judge quits in the shadow of parliamentary removal, does the statutory inquiry against him fall with him? The question has arisen before. When Justice P.D. Dinakaran resigned in July 2011, the committee was wound up, despite its sittings after his resignation. Justice Soumitra Sen’s case went further. His inquiry committee returned adverse findings. The Rajya Sabha voted to remove him in August 2011. He resigned on the eve of the Lok Sabha vote, and the motion was dropped as infructuous. Justice Varma has now resigned as his committee nears conclusion. The first two episodes produced no reform. The third is still in progress.

Speaker Om Birla stands at the same fork. One road leads back to the choice Vice-President Hamid Ansari made in September 2011, when he wound up the committee examining charges against Justice P.D. Dinakaran. The other was set out that year by jurist G. Mohan Gopal, a member of that committee, in a letter to his two colleagues. The letter, later obtained under the RTI Act, was read and circulated. Its reasoning prevailed within the committee, which did not bring the inquiry to an end. Mr. Ansari did. That reasoning has not been rebutted. Its occasion has now recurred.