A Supreme Court bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and SC Sharma reserved its decision on Justice Yashwant Varma’s plea challenging the legality of a parliamentary panel probing corruption charges against him. Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Siddharth Luthra argued that under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, only the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman can admit a motion to remove a judge. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta defended the panel’s constitution and said that if the motion is admitted in both Houses, the inquiry committee is jointly constituted by the Speaker and the Chairman. An earlier in-house committee constituted by then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna submitted a report on May 4 finding Justice Varma guilty of misconduct, and the report and Varma’s response were forwarded to the President and the Prime Minister after Varma declined to resign.