Won't acquiesce to injustice: HC judge slams ultimatum to resign

Refusing to bow to pressure to resign or opt for voluntary retirement in the wake of a controversy over the discovery of cash at his Delhi residence earlier this year, Justice Yashwant Varma told the then Chief Justice of India (CJI), Sanjiv Khanna last month, that doing so would mean accepting a "fundamentally unjust" process that denied him even a personal hearing.

- Utkarsh Anand

NEW DELHI:

In a strongly worded letter dated May 6, copy of which has been seen by Hindustan Times, Justice Varma declined the then CJI's advice, issued in a May 4 communication, to step down or seek retirement, and instead flagged serious violations of procedural fairness. The CJI's letter was delivered to him just hours after he received the findings of a three-judge in-house panel that found him liable for misconduct, and in response, Justice Varma decried the compressed timeline of just 48 hours given to make a life-altering decision.

"To accept such advice would imply my acquiescence to a process and outcome that I respectfully consider to be fundamentally unjust and requiring reconsideration and review," Justice Varma wrote in the letter addressed to Justice Khanna.

"You will appreciate that I have served the institution for more than 11 years. A decision such as the one your letter advises me to take necessarily entails due deliberation and thought which cannot and ought not to be restricted to a 48-hour window," it added.