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The Supreme Court of India has made public the probe report submitted by Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya regarding the controversy surrounding the alleged discovery of cash at the official residence of Delhi High Court Justice Yashwant Varma.
The 25 pages report details the sequence of events that led to the discovery of the unaccounted cash following a fire at Justice Varma’s official residence. The Supreme Court also made available videos and photographs provided by Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora, which purportedly depict firefighters retrieving half-burnt wads of cash from the site.
In one of the videos, a person is heard saying, “Mahatma Gandhi mein aag lag gayi,” referring to the burning of currency notes featuring Mahatma Gandhi’s image.
Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna has taken action by constituting a three-member in-house inquiry committee to investigate the allegations against Justice Varma. The committee comprises of Justice Sheel Nagu (Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court), Justice GS Sandhawalia (Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court) and Justice Anu Sivaraman (Judge of Karnataka High Court).
Furthermore, Justice Upadhyaya has been instructed not to assign any judicial work to Justice Varma for the time being.
Justice Verma Denies Allegations
Alongside the report, the Supreme Court has also released Justice Varma’s response to the allegations, in which he has vehemently denied any involvement.
In his response, Justice Varma asserted that the room where the cash was allegedly found was an outhouse, separate from his main residence. He categorically denied any knowledge of or involvement with the cash recovered from the site.
“I state unequivocally that no cash was ever placed in that storeroom either by me or any of my family members and strongly denounce the suggestion that the alleged cash belonged to us. The very idea or suggestion that this cash was kept or stored by us is totally preposterous. The suggestion that one would store cash in an open, freely accessible and commonly used storeroom near the staff quarters or in an outhouse verges on the incredible and incredulous. It is a room which is completely disassociated from my living areas and a boundary wall demarcates my living area from that outhouse. I only wish that the media had conducted some enquiry before I came to be indicted and defamed in the press.”
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