In a dramatic turn of events for the Indian judiciary, Justice Yashwant Varma of the Allahabad High Court submitted his resignation to President Droupadi Murmu on Friday, April 10, 2026. This sudden move comes just as impeachment proceedings against him in Parliament were gaining significant momentum. Justice Varma, who was at the center of a year-long controversy involving the alleged discovery of a massive cache of unaccounted cash at his official residence, stated in his resignation letter that he did so with “deep anguish.” While he refrained from detailing the specific reasons for his departure in the letter to the President, his resignation effectively halts the constitutional process for his removal, as the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, only applies to sitting judges.
The scandal first erupted on March 14, 2025, when a fire broke out in a storeroom at Justice Varma’s then-official residence in Lutyens’ Delhi. Firefighters battling the blaze reportedly discovered substantial amounts of burnt and partially burnt currency notes. Although the judge and his wife were traveling in Madhya Pradesh at the time, a subsequent Supreme Court in-house inquiry found his explanations regarding the source of the cash to be unsatisfactory. This led the then-Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, to recommend his removal, eventually resulting in his transfer to the Allahabad High Court and the stripping of his judicial duties.
By August 2025, the matter reached Parliament, where Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla admitted a motion signed by 146 Members of Parliament to initiate impeachment proceedings. A three-member judicial committee was constituted to investigate the allegations of “proved misbehavior.” Despite Justice Varma’s repeated denials—claiming the cash did not belong to him and that the incident was a conspiracy—the Supreme Court recently cleared the path for the parliamentary probe to continue. With his resignation, the inquiry committee’s proceedings are expected to lapse , finally an abrupt and controversial end to the career of a judge who was otherwise set to serve until 2031.
