NEW DELHI, Mar 26: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused the urgent mentioning of a plea for Delhi Police to register an FIR over the alleged discovery of burnt wads of cash from the official residence of Delhi High Court Judge Yashwant Varma.
Follow the Daily Excelsior channel on WhatsApp
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, however, assured petitioner advocate Mathews J Nedumpara that the plea would be listed by the Registry.
The petitioner said, “The only thing is that an FIR has to be registered against the judge. Your lordship has done a wonderful job….the publishing of the video of the burnt notes.”
The CJI, who has stopped the practice of oral mentioning of cases for urgent listing, said, “Don’t make public statements.”
Another petitioner in the case said if such a case was against a common citizen, then several probe agencies such as the CBI and ED would have gone after them.
“This is quite enough. The plea will come up accordingly,” the CJI said.
Nedumpara and three others moved court on March 23 for FIR and challenging the 1991 judgement in the K Veeraswami case, in which the top court ruled that no criminal proceedings could be initiated against a judge of the high court or the top court without the prior nod of the Chief Justice of India.
On Wednesday, a Delhi police team led by deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi), reportedly on the instructions of the apex court-appointed in-house committee, visited the residence of Justice Varma.
The DCP and others visited Varma’s house at around 1.50 pm and left two hours later without addressing media persons.
It is also believed that the Delhi police team inspected the place where the fire occurred.
Sources said some officials visited the office of Delhi Fire Services (DFS) in connection with the ongoing inquiry.
The DFS had initially said the firefighters did not find any cash from Justice Varma’s residence during a fire incident on March 14.
On March 25, three members of a Supreme Court-appointed in-house committee visited the residence of Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma as it commenced its inquiry into allegations of discovery of a cash pile at his official Lutyen’s home.
The alleged cash discovery happened following a fire at Varma’s Lutyens Delhi residence at around 11.35 pm on March 14, prompting the fire officers to rush to the spot.
In the wake of the controversy, the apex court collegium recommended the repatriation of Justice Varma, from whom work was withdrawn by the Delhi High Court following a directive from CJI, to his parent Allahabad High Court.
On March 22, the CJI constituted the three-member committee to conduct an in-house inquiry into allegations and decided to upload the inquiry report of Chief Justice D K Upadhyay of the Delhi High Court in the incident.
It included photos and videos of the alleged discovery of a huge stash of cash.
Justice Varma denounced the allegations and said no cash was ever placed in the storeroom either by him or any of his family members. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
