The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear the petition seeking an FIR against Justice Yashwant Varma to investigate cash recovery at his house and said there are plenty of options available after in-house inquiry report is out.
A bench of Justices A.S. Oka and Ujjyal Bhuyan, while hearing the plea said, “After the in-house inquiry is over, there are plenty of options including registration of FIR. Today it is not the time to do this.” The plea was moved by advocate Mathews Nedumpara.
Advocate Nedumpara, who was arguing in person, urged the court to look into his plea. “Please see what happened in Kerala...in a POCSO case...allegations were against a retired judge and police could not write the name of the accused. There was an allegation. Police can only probe it, courts cannot. See, the common man keeps on asking why no FIR was registered on March 14, no arrest, no seizure and why criminal law was not put into motion; why a week to release the scandal, why did the collegium not say it has the videos?”
However, Justice Oka refused to hear the case and in its brief order said, “Heard petitioner in person. As far as the grievance regarding the third respondent is concerned, as can be seen from the Supreme Court's website, the in-house inquiry proceedings are underway. After the report is submitted by the committee, there will be several options open for the chief justice of India. Therefore, not correct to entertain the plea at this stage. At this stage, it is not needed to reconsider the judgments of this court. Plea disposed off.”
Last week, Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna constituted a three-member committee consisting of Justice Sheel Nagu, Chief Justice of the High Court of Punjab & Haryana; Justice G.S. Sandhawalia, Chief Justice of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh; and Anu Sivaraman, Judge of the High Court of Karnataka, for conducting an inquiry into the allegations.
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The incident leading to the discovery of cash happened on the day of Holi. Reports suggest that Justice Varma was not at home when a fire broke out at his official residence and family members alerted the fire brigade. Allegedly, while dousing the fire, the first responders stumbled across a huge amount of unaccounted cash inside a room.
Justice Varma was first appointed as an additional judge of the Allahabad High Court in October 2014. He took oath as a permanent member of that court two years later, in February 2016. During his tenure at the High Court, he handled matters relating to the Constitution and labour disputes, as well as laws governing industries, corporations and taxes.
