The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Justice Yashwant Varma’s petition challenging the legality of the inquiry committee constituted by the Lok Sabha speaker to look into corruption charges against him, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma held that Varma “is not entitled to any relief” and that “no interference is called for”.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Varma seeking to quash Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s decision to constitute the committee under the 1968 Judges Inquiry Act to investigate the impeachment proceedings against him in the unaccounted cash row.

Unaccounted cash was allegedly recovered at Varma’s official residence in Delhi when emergency services responded to a fire there on March 14. He was a judge at the Delhi High Court at that time. The judge said he was in Bhopal when the cash was discovered and claimed that it did not belong to him or his family.

Amid the row, he was transferred to the Allahabad High Court.

In his petition, Varma had argued that although impeachment notices had been submitted in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, Birla constituted the committee unilaterally without waiting for the chairperson of the Upper House to admit the motion.

He contended that this was contrary to Section 3(2) of the Judges Inquiry Act, which requires both Houses of Parliament to admit the motion for impeachment.

On January 8, the Supreme Court reserved its verdict in the matter.

The bench had said at the time that it had “to balance the rights of the judge to be proceeded against as well as the members who have an independent right under the law to move a motion and get it admitted”, The Indian Express reported.

A report of the in-house inquiry committee into the matter, released on May 3, concluded that there was “sufficient substance” in the charges against Varma. It held that the judge’s misconduct was “serious enough to call for initiation of proceedings for removal”.

To impeach a judge in Parliament, a removal motion is required to be signed by 100 Lok Sabha MPs or 50 Rajya Sabha MPs. If the motion is admitted in both Houses, a three-member judicial committee investigates the matter. Parliament votes on the impeachment if the committee finds misconduct. If the motion gets two-thirds of the votes, the president is advised to remove the judge.

On July 25, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that the decision to impeach Varma was unanimous and that 152 MPs from the ruling coalition and the Opposition parties had signed the motion.

There is consensus that the removal of Varma should be a joint effort, he had said, adding that the Lok Sabha will take up the proceedings before they move to the Rajya Sabha in line with the Judges Inquiry Act.

On August 12, the Lok Sabha speaker formed a three-member committee, comprising Supreme Court Justice Aravind Kumar, Madras High Court Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and advocate B Vasudeva Acharya, to look into the matter.

In November, the committee sought a written statement from Varma on the charges against him. In response, the judge sought authenticated copies of the motions before both the Houses in July and any orders passed in connection with them.

However, the Lok Sabha’s secretary general said that the Rajya Sabha had not admitted the impeachment motion

Earlier, Varma had also challenged the in-house committee report that indicted him in the matter, as well as the recommendation made by Sanjiv Khanna, who was the chief justice of India when the report was submitted to the president and the prime minister to initiate impeachment proceedings against him.

In August, the Supreme Court dismissed both the petitions.