The Supreme Court of India has released the probe report furnished by Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya into the controversy over the alleged recovery of cash from the residence of High Court Justice Yashwant Varma..The Court has also released the response of Justice Varma to the allegations. In his response, Justice Varma has denied the allegations and has also stated that the room which caught fire and where cash was allegedly found was an outhouse and not the main building where the judge and family resides."I state unequivocally that no cash was ever placed in that storeroom either by me or any of my family members and strongly denounce the suggestion that the alleged cash belonged to us. The very idea or suggestion that this cash was kept or stored by us is totally preposterous. The suggestion that one would store cash in an open, freely accessible and commonly used storeroom near the staff quarters or in an outhouse verges on the incredible and incredulous. It is a room which is completely disassociated from my living areas and a boundary wall demarcates my living area from that outhouse. I only wish that the media had conducted some enquiry before I came to be indicted and defamed in the press," Justice Varma has said in his response.The report and all other documents run into 25 pages..The Chief Justice of India, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, has arleady constituted a three-member in-house inquiry committee to examine the allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma. The committee comprises Justice Sheel Nagu (Chief Justice of the Punjab & Haryana High Court) Justice GS Sandhawalia (Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court) and Justice Anu Sivaraman (Judge of the Karnataka High Court)..The CJI has the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court has been asked not to assign any judicial work to Justice Varma for the time being. .A fire at Justice Varma's house had inadvertently led to the recovery of unaccounted cash, as per media reports.The Supreme Court Collegium had then decided to repatriate Justice Varma back to the Allahabad High Court, his parent High Court.However, at a full court meeting of all Supreme Court judges held on Friday morning, it was suggested that a punitive transfer will not be enough and some concrete action has to be taken against the judge..The full court then unanimously agreed to an in-house probe, with transfer as the first step..[Read Report]
