A total of 145 Members of Parliament from the Lok Sabha and 63 from the Rajya Sabha submitted a petition on Monday seeking the impeachment of Justice Yashwant Varma over the recent recovery of large amounts of cash.

The 145 Lok Sabha MPs who signed the petition include Anurag Thakur, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, PP Chaudhary, Supriya Sule and KC Venugopal. The petition against Justice Varma has been submitted under Articles 124, 217 and 218 of the Constitution.

According to procedure, a motion to remove a judge must carry signatures of at least 100 MPs from the Lok Sabha and 50 from the Rajya Sabha. The Speaker or the Chairman of the House has the authority to either accept or reject such a motion.

Earlier, Congress MP K Suresh said that the party fully supported the impeachment move and was working in coordination with other parties in the INDIA bloc.

On Sunday, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that more than 100 lawmakers had submitted a notice for the impeachment of the sitting High Court judge.

Last week, Rijiju had also said that all political parties were in agreement on the issue of Justice Varma’s impeachment, after burnt bundles of currency notes were found at his residence.

Although Justice Varma has denied any wrongdoing, a panel set up by the Supreme Court to conduct an internal inquiry found that the judge and his family had exclusive control over the storeroom where the cash was discovered, and concluded that the misconduct was serious enough to recommend his removal, according to a news agency report.