Cash at judge’s house: RS Chairman Dhankhar meets floor leaders; meeting remains inconclusive

Amid raging controversy over alleged recovery of unaccounted cash at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma of the Delhi High Court, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday met floor leaders of various political parties at Parliament House to discuss judicial accountability and other issues surrounding the controversy.

Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge is understood to have raised the issue of representation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, lack of a transparent merit-based appointment system and uncle judges’ syndrome in the judiciary, sources said, adding the meeting remained inconclusive.

"No conclusion was reached in the meeting today...It may be discussed in the House in the coming week," Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi told reporters after the meeting. TMC MPs demanded the issue to be discussed on the floor of the House, sources said.

The Government was awaiting the report of the three-judge in-house committee appointed by CJI Sanjiv Khanna to probe the allegations of recovery of cash at Justice Varma’s residence during a fire on March 14, they said, adding it would be working to build a consensus on the issue of judicial accountability and the possibility of reviving the National Judicial Appointments Committee (NJAC) Act, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2015.

The Rajya Sabha Chairman – who held a meeting on Monday with Leader of the House JP Nadda and Leader of Opposition Kharge on Justice Varma’s issue -- said earlier in the day that it was the right time to “reiterate” the NJAC Act that gave representation to the government in the judicial appointment panel.

“I seek your suggestions on one very important point. What emanated from Indian Parliament as a historic development with rare convergence of unity since Independence found acceptance by needed state legislatures. We need to reflect on what happened to that,” he said, referring to the NJAC Act.

“Now is the befitting occasion for all of us to reiterate that because that was a visionary step endorsed by Parliament… And imagine if that had taken place, things would have been different,” Dhankhar said.

The Rajya Sabha Chairman said, “This House, keeping dignity in mind, demonstrating dignified conduct, unanimously created a legal system in 2015 and that constitutional structure that emanated unanimously with one abstention from Parliament endorsed by state legislatures should be rule of law because it was sanctified by the President by appending her signatures under Article 111.”

Noting that he does not wish to be judgmental on any issue, Dhankhar said, “… but one thing which has found widespread acceptability in the country is that the entire material available with the Supreme Court has been shared with the people at large and with the constitution of a committee with that speed, I'm sure things will be available to us.”

He said, “Now, we are at a crossroads. I strongly urge members to reflect. There can be no breach by any institution of what emanated from Parliament, endorsed by legislatures. And that should again, I reiterate, be the mechanism holding the field. It is time for us, having seen such extraordinarily painful scenario… Innocence is something which we take at a very high level till someone is proven guilty.”

He said, “So, we will come back to the House on this very critical important issue that concerns much beyond judicial mess. It concerns sovereignty of Parliament, supremacy of Parliament, and whether we are at all relevant.”