WHY SC PANEL RECOMMENDED HC JUDGE'S IMPEACHMENT

An in-house probe panel indicted high court judge Yashwant Varma for misconduct after establishing that a storeroom that accidentally caught fire where sacks of 500 were found partially burnt, were under his family's overt or covert control

- MANISH KUMAR

WHEN Parliament convenes for its monsoon session on July 21, one issue on which there ought to be wide consensus is the impeachment of former Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma. Sacks of partially burnt ₹500 currency notes found in the storeroom of his official residence, 30, Tughlaq Crescent, New Delhi during an accidental fire - captured on camera on the intervening night of March 14-15 threw up questions of judicial integrity. One of the videos has an audio referring to the burning currency as "Mahatma Gandhi me aag lag rahi hai" (is burning).

That the storeroom was cleaned up and the notes went missing the next morning, but some BU burnt fragments of the bank notes were later found on the Tughlaq Crescent lane by lay people added to the mystery. Justice Varma, his family and personal staff flatly denied there was any currency note in the room.

But by then the photos and videos had reached the then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna. The CJI took the extraordinary decision of putting the visuals and Justice Varma's denial in public domain. However, when an inhouse probe panel's report indicted the judge, he recommended his impeachment but refrained from placing the report in public domain.

The media got hold of the 64-page report which possibly built a watertight case against Justice Varma. Curiously, no first information report (FIR) has been filed against the crime yet. Also, no committee has been constituted to investigate the allegations against Justice Varma under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, which is mandatory.

At a recent meeting of a parliamentary committee on law and justice, several MPs asked why no FIR has been lodged over the matter. While the government is trying to build parliamentary consensus for impeachment, the Opposition is yet to take a final call.