The Missing Middle in Judicial Accountability in India | By Moksh Gupta

Judicial independence is indispensable to the rule of law, but independence cannot mean freedom from all institutional accountability. India protects judges from political retaliation and personal liability for their judicial decisions. Yet its framework for addressing misconduct by judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts remains strikingly uneven. Ordinary judicial errors are corrected through appeal or review, while proved misbehaviour serious enough to justify removal must travel through the exceptional constitutional process commonly described as impeachment. Between these two ends lies a large and underdeveloped space: conduct that raises legitimate concerns about integrity, ethics or fitness for office, but may not immediately justify removal. This is the missing middle in India’s system of judicial accountability.

Error Is Not Misconduct

An adverse appellate decision does not establish misconduct by the judge whose order has been reversed. Courts decide difficult questions on which reasonable judges may disagree. The appellate structure exists to correct errors of fact or law and to maintain consistency in legal interpretation. Treating every reversed decision as a disciplinary matter would encourage defensive judging and expose adjudication to pressure from disappointed litigants, political actors and public campaigns.

Indian law therefore protects judges for acts performed in the discharge of judicial duties. In Anowar Hussain v Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee, the Supreme Court explained the breadth of protection available for judicial acts performed within jurisdiction or under a bona fide belief of jurisdiction. Judicial immunity, however, is not a declaration that a judge is institutionally unanswerable. It protects the decisional process from personal retaliation; it does not prevent a fair inquiry into corruption, abuse of office or other established misconduct.

The Supreme Court drew an equally important distinction in K Veeraswami v Union of India. It held that a judge of a superior court falls within the anti-corruption law’s conception of a public servant, while requiring prior consultation with the Chief Justice of India before a criminal case is registered. The decision reflects the correct constitutional balance: accountability is possible, but safeguards are necessary to prevent criminal process from becoming a tool of intimidation.

The Constitutional Framework and Its Limits

Articles 124(4) and 217 of the Constitution permit the removal of a Supreme Court or High Court judge only on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. Removal requires an address by each House of Parliament, supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by at least two-thirds of the members present and voting. The Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 supplies the statutory procedure for investigating a removal motion.

These safeguards are deliberately demanding. Security of tenure would be meaningless if a temporary political majority could remove a judge for an unpopular decision. But a procedure designed for the gravest cases cannot serve as the only effective public response to every form of judicial misconduct. No judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court has so far been removed through the completed constitutional process. Resignation or retirement has, in some cases, intervened before the process reached a final vote.

At the other end is the judiciary’s In-House Procedure. It permits allegations against superior-court judges to be examined internally, but it is not founded on a comprehensive statute and does not create a transparent range of enforceable sanctions. In C Ravichandran Iyer v Justice A M Bhattacharjee, the Supreme Court itself recognised the absence of an appropriate forum for dealing with conduct that falls short of the constitutional threshold for removal. The in-house mechanism was developed as an institutional response to that gap, but its limited transparency and uncertain consequences prevent it from becoming a complete accountability system.

The Justice Yashwant Varma Episode

The proceedings concerning former Justice Yashwant Varma illustrate the problem. Following a fire at his official residence in New Delhi in March 2025, reports and official material placed in the public domain indicated that burnt or partially burnt currency had been found in a storeroom. Justice Varma denied that he or his family had placed any cash there. The Chief Justice of India constituted a three-member in-house committee, and judicial work was withdrawn from him. The committee’s report led the then Chief Justice of India to recommend initiation of the constitutional removal process.

In August 2025, the Supreme Court dismissed Justice Varma’s challenge to the in-house inquiry and the consequential recommendation. A committee was also constituted under the Judges (Inquiry) Act after a removal motion was admitted in the Lok Sabha. Justice Varma resigned in April 2026 while the parliamentary inquiry was pending. The committee’s report was subsequently tabled in Parliament and, according to the report, the charges stood proved. The sequence is stated here as a matter of institutional record; it does not replace the findings of the competent bodies or erase the former judge’s denials.

The episode shows why the present framework is structurally incomplete. The in-house inquiry could investigate and recommend, but it could not impose a transparent, proportionate statutory sanction. The parliamentary process was designed to remove a sitting judge; resignation complicated its practical purpose. Public concern therefore moved between an internal process with limited remedial powers and a constitutional process whose central remedy became unavailable once the office was vacated.

What a Proportionate System Could Look Like

India does not need a system that allows governments or dissatisfied litigants to discipline judges for their decisions. It needs an independent judicial-conduct framework that separates complaints about adjudicatory outcomes from credible allegations of misconduct. The lapsed Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010 attempted to provide a statutory code of conduct, a complaints mechanism and investigative bodies. Its precise design should not simply be revived without scrutiny, particularly where executive participation could threaten independence. Its central idea, however, remains valuable: accountability requires institutions and remedies between informal advice and removal from office.

A reformed framework should begin with a screening body capable of dismissing frivolous, repetitive or merits-based complaints at an early stage. Serious complaints should proceed to an independent panel with judicial members and carefully selected non-judicial members, protected tenure, clear jurisdiction and published procedural rules. The judge concerned must receive notice of the allegations, access to relevant material and a fair opportunity to respond. Decisions should contain reasons, subject to lawful protection of complainants, witnesses and genuinely confidential information.

Most importantly, the consequences must be proportionate. Depending on the nature and proof of misconduct, available measures could include confidential advice, a formal warning, public censure, temporary withdrawal of administrative or judicial assignments, a recommendation to seek voluntary retirement, or initiation of removal proceedings. Any power resembling suspension would require careful constitutional design so that it does not become an indirect method of removing a judge or compromising security of tenure.

Transparency must also improve. Annual reports could disclose the number and categories of complaints received, the time taken at each stage and anonymised outcomes. Where misconduct is established and public confidence requires disclosure, reasoned findings should ordinarily be published. At the same time, confidentiality should protect judges during preliminary screening, because unsupported allegations can cause lasting reputational harm even after dismissal.

Learning from Other Jurisdictions

Comparable democracies demonstrate that judicial independence can coexist with graduated discipline. The United Kingdom’s Judicial Conduct Investigations Office receives and investigates complaints about personal misconduct and publishes information about disciplinary outcomes. The Canadian Judicial Council reviews complaints against federally appointed judges and may recommend measures short of removal in appropriate cases. South Africa’s Judicial Service Commission and Judicial Conduct Committee operate under a statutory framework for judicial complaints. None of these models should be transplanted mechanically, but each shows that removal need not be the only formal response available.

The Way Forward

The choice is not between an unaccountable judiciary and a judiciary controlled by the political branches. A sound constitutional system must protect judges when they decide cases independently and act decisively when credible evidence establishes misconduct. Public confidence does not depend on pretending that judges are infallible; it depends on showing that errors are corrected through law and misconduct is examined through a fair process.

The Supreme Court’s decision in 2025 to place judges’ asset declarations in the public domain was a meaningful step towards transparency. It cannot, however, substitute for a statutory complaints and disciplinary framework. India should build the missing middle through independent screening, fair investigation, reasoned outcomes and proportionate consequences. Such a framework would strengthen judicial independence by protecting judges from arbitrary attack while ensuring that the authority entrusted to them remains answerable to constitutional standards.

About the Author

 

 

 

 

Moksh Gupta is a fourth-year B.Com. LL.B. student at the University Institute of Legal Studies, Chandigarh University, Punjab, India.

Follow Moksh here- https://www.linkedin.com/in/moksh-gupta-9844a028a