The silver maces and panic buttons: The impeachment story of Justice V. Ramaswami
Earlier this week, The Leaflet published the full report of the in-house committee on Justice Yashwant Varma, against whom an impeachment motion may be introduced this monsoon. In 1989, Lawyers Collective had relentlessly campaigned for the removal of a sitting Supreme Court judge Justice Ramaswami, alleged of extravagant expenditures and proved misbehaviour. Recalling this crucial episode of our judiciary’s history, and how it ended, provides perspective in these challenging times.
Justice K. Chandru (Retd.)
Published on: 22 June 2025, 12:09 pm
AFTER THE BAISAKI OF 1989, one day we, in the Lawyers Collective, were sitting in the house of Indira Jaising at Golflinks at Delhi. We just came across an article by Kuldeep Nayyar on the audit objections by the Accountant General (‘AG’) of Punjab raised against the extravagant expenditures incurred by the then Chief Justice of the Punjab & Haryana High Court, Justice V. Ramaswamy from Tamil Nadu. Suddenly it occurred to us that we must go deeper into the issue.
Immediately we hopped onto the Shatabdi Express leaving in the morning to Chandigarh. We had no actual plans. By mid day when the mercury levels were increasing, our team of five headed by Indira Jaising landed in Chandigarh in the afternoon. We proceeded to Sector 1 where the magnificent High Court was situated. Some friends in the High Court bar recognised us and immediately took us to the bar room where a meeting was in progress. We were also allowed to be seated in the meeting. To our surprise, the bar was discussing the increased inbreeding and nepotism among judges in favouring the near and dear. Many emphasised the setting of the ‘uncle syndrome’ of the bench. In the end, the meeting passed a resolution, which if not laudable enough for passing the policy of transferring one third of the judges to other high courts also noted that in Chandigarh, hundred percent were to be out from outside only.
After the meeting, we slowly broached the subject of the audit report against Justice Ramaswami and the article by Kuldeep Nayyar. Obviously, no one was surprised about the extravaganza and started giving many tales about Justice Ramaswamy. Within a few hours, we met several advocates, social activists, and some bureaucrats. To our surprise, we also had an audience with some of the senior judges of the High Court who were frank enough to discuss the issues of administrative misbehaviour of their chief justice. At the time of our visit, Justice Ramaswami had gone back to his home town and we had a peep into his official residence where we could see the opulence and indiscrete expenditure incurred in renovating the residence. The subject matter of such expenditures also formed part of the AG audit conducted. To our luck, we got a copy of the audit objections raised by the AG of Punjab.
To our surprise, we also had an audience with some of the senior judges of the High Court who were frank enough to discuss the issues of administrative misbehaviour of their chief justice.
