Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna has asked the Allahabad High Court to file a fresh report about the anti-Muslim remarks made by Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav in December, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.

This comes three weeks after Yadav, a judge in the High Court, was summoned by the Supreme Court for his comments at an event organised by Hindutva group Vishwa Hindu Parishad on December 8.

Yadav had said that India would be run as per the wishes of its Hindu majority. He also uttered a communal slur used for Muslims who have been circumcised and described the community as “harmful to the country”.

“They are the kind of people who do not want the country to progress and we need to be cautious of them,” Yadav, a sitting High Court judge, said. He added that India would soon adopt a Uniform Civil Code – a common set of laws governing marriage, divorce, succession and adoption for all citizens.

Yadav had on December 17 appeared before the Supreme Court Collegium headed by Khanna. The Collegium had sought an explanation for his remarks, The Indian Express reported. Khanna had also informed the full Supreme Court about the matter.

However, Yadav has not submitted an apology or an explanation, the newspaper reported.

The decision by Khanna to seek a fresh report from Arun Bhansali, the chief justice of the High Court, is being viewed as the first step in initiating an in-house inquiry against Yadav for the alleged misconduct, according to the newspaper.

The remarks by Yadav had led to demands for his impeachment, with some critics calling for his judicial work to be suspended.

On December 13, 55 Opposition MPs filed a notice in the Rajya Sabha calling for his impeachment. The 21-page motion, initiated by Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, said that the judge’s speech “prima facie [showed] evidence [that he] has targeted minorities and displayed bias and prejudice against minorities”.

On Tuesday, the High Court rejected a public interest litigation challenging the impeachment motion against Yadav.

Scroll looked at several of his orders over the last three-and-a-half years and found that Yadav has a pattern of referring to Hindutva talking points.

In his judgements, Yadav has suggested that the state should honour the cow as well as Hindu gods, referred to conspiracy theories about religious conversions and accused people of making false complaints under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act.

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