The Supreme Court on Wednesday hinted that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai-led Bench will not likely take up for hearing the plea filed by Justice Yashwant Varma challenging his indictment by the three-member in-house committee in the cash-discovery episode.
This unfolded when senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Justice Varma, urged CJI Gavai to constitute a Bench for urgent hearing of the matter.
At this, CJI Gavai said, “I think that it may not be proper for me to pick up that matter because I was part of the conversation”. However, the CJI assured Sibal that a Bench will be constituted to hear the plea filed by Justice Varma.
“We will just take a call and constitute a Bench,” said CJI Gavai.
The writ petition filed by Justice Varma sought to quash the communication forwarded by then CJI Sanjiv Khanna to the President and then Prime Minister to take action against Justice Varma.
As per the petition, the in-house panel acted in a “pre-determined manner” and denied Justice Varma a fair opportunity to defend himself.
On Monday, 145 MPs from both the ruling and Opposition parties submitted an impeachment notice against Justice Varma to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
Justice Varma has been in the eye of a storm since the March 14 discovery of the burnt cash in an outhouse of his official residence allotted to him while serving in the Delhi High Court.
Following the cash-discovery row, which sent shockwaves across the judicial corridors, Justice Varma was repatriated to the Allahabad High Court, and an in-house probe was set up to probe the allegations.
According to the probe committee, both direct and electronic evidence confirmed that the storeroom was under the covert or active control of Justice Varma and his family. By way of strong inferential evidence, the in-house panel said the burnt cash was removed from the storeroom during the early hours of March 15.
In conclusion, the three-member inquiry committee, comprising Chief Justice Sheel Nagu of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, CJ G.S. Sandhawalia of the Himachal Pradesh HC and Karnataka HC’s Justice Anu Sivaraman, found the allegations serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings against Justice Varma. It opined that Justice Varma’s misconduct was not only proven but also grave enough to warrant his removal under Article 124(4) of the Constitution.