FIR demand against Justice Varma, PIL challenges CJI's inquiry committee

Two days after Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna set up a three-judge committee to probe allegations of unaccounted cash recovered at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma during a fire on March 14, a PIL in the Supreme Court on Monday demanded registration of an FIR against him.

The petitioner sought a direction to the government to take concrete and meaningful steps to combat corruption at all levels of the judiciary, including the enactment of the lapsed Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010.

Interestingly, petitioner advocate Mathews Nedumpara challenged the three-member committee constituted to probe the matter.

Nedumpara also challenged the Supreme Court’s direction in K Veeraswami versus Union of India

(1991) in which it was held that a criminal case against a sitting High Court or Supreme Court judge can only be filed after consulting the CJI.

“No criminal case shall be registered under Section 154, CrPC against a Judge of the High Court, Chief Justice of the High Court or a Judge of the Supreme Court unless the Chief Justice of India is consulted in the matter,” the top court had ruled in the Veeraswami case. The CJI had on March 22 set up a three-member committee consisting of Punjab & Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sheel Nagu, Himachal Pradesh High Court Chief Justice G.S. Sandhawalia, and Justice Anu Sivaraman of the Karnataka High Court to conduct an inquiry into the allegations against Justice Varma. However, the petitioner said, “The collegium, in appointing a committee of judges to conduct an in-house inquiry instead of directing that an FIR shall be lodged, has done a great disservice to public interest, the fair name and the reputation of the Supreme Court and the institution of judiciary and even Justice Varma if one were to believe his version, which is ex-facie absurd."

Nedumpara said, "In Justice Yashwant Varma's case, no FIR has been filed to the knowledge of the Petitioners. The public perception is that every effort will be made to cover up the issue, to the extent even the initial statements regarding the recovery of money are now being refuted. However, the Supreme Court uploading on its website the report of the Hon'ble Chief Justice of the High Court of Delhi along with the explanation from Justice Varma and the video of the fire force dousing huge volumes of currency notes, has to some extent helped public trust to be restored."

He, however, said, “The common man and media channels, not lawyers and judges who comment on public platforms, keep asking the same question: why no FIR was registered on 14th March, on the day of the occurrence? Why no arrests were made? Why was the money not seized? Why was no mahazar prepared? Why was the criminal law not put into motion? Why did it take over almost a week for the public to know about the scandal?”