Rajya Sabha General Secretary PC Mody. Photo: X/@IncomeTaxIndia
The Supreme Court on Friday (Jan 16, 2026) expressed concern over the Rajya Sabha secretary general going far beyond a purely administrative role to prepare a “draft decision” concluding that the notification of the Rajya Sabha MPs’ motion to impeach Justice Yashwant Varma is inadmissible. The Supreme Court said that “it would be just and proper for the Secretariat to exercise restraint in such matters”.
The Deputy Speaker of the Rajya Sabha’s eventual rejection of the MPs’ notification of the motion was based on conclusions reached by the Secretary General that not everything was “right”.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and SC Sharma said that the Secretary General had only an administrative role and did not extend to assuming quasi-judicial functions.
In the judgement, the court expressed the hope that the next time a judge faces an appeal, the secretariat will leave the decision to accept the motion to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha or the Speaker of the Rajya Sabha, as the case may be.
“We hope that no other judge will face proceedings for his removal from service on charges of misconduct. If there is ever an unfortunate recurrence of a prima facie judge indulging in misconduct and the representatives of the people of the nation demand an inquiry… It would be fair and proper if the Secretariat exercised restraint and left it to the Speaker of the Sabha, the Sabha or the Chairman of the Raja to decide the question of accepting the motion instead of deciding what should be a future course of action,” Justice Datta wrote in the judgment.
In this case, the Secretary-General’s draft decision concluded that MPs had failed to use the “correct terms”, failed to submit “verified documents in support of the material facts” in their notice of appeal, and had stated the wrong facts and cited the wrong provision of law.
The court said none of this was necessary to move the takedown notice and the Secretary-General had “exceeded the scope of his designated role”.
However, the court added that this discussion was for academic purposes only and Justice Varma should not rely on it to claim any advantage or leverage.
Published – 16 Jan 2026 21:32 IST
