NEW DELHI, Mar 28: Calling it “premature”, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected a PIL seeking 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.
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A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said an in-house inquiry was in progress and there would be several options open to the chief justice of India after the probe’s conclusion.
The bench, therefore, refused to examine the plea of advocate Mathews J Nedumpara and three others.
“We have seen the prayers. After the in-house inquiry is over, several options are open. If the report indicates something is wrong, the chief justice (of India) can direct the register of the FIR or refer the matter to the Parliament after examining the report,” the court said.
The bench went on, “Today it is not the day to consider this petition. After the in-house report, all options are open. Why should we go into this question? The petition is premature because internal inquiry is going on.”
Nedumpara, however, argued it investigation was not the court’s job and should carried out by the police.
“The in-house committee is not a statutory authority and cannot be a substitute for criminal investigations undertaken by specialised agencies,” he said.
The lawyer said the common man had a lot of questions such as, “Why no FIR was registered on the day when the cash was discovered on March 14? Why no seizure was prepared? Why the scandal was kept a secret for one week? Why the criminal law was not set into motion? Why did the collegium not tell the public?”
The top court asked Nedumpara to let the process get over following which there were options available.
The bench told him if he was representing the common man, then he should educate them about there being a system.
The court order went on to record, “As far grievance regarding the third respondent (Justice Varma) is concerned, as can be seen from the website of the Supreme Court, in-house procedure is in progress. After the report is submitted there will be several options open for the chief justice of India after the conclusion of the inquiry.
The court then held, “Therefore at this stage, it will not be appropriate to entertain this writ petition. There are wider prayers against some of the decisions of this court seeking to read them down. At this stage, according to us, it is not necessary to go into that aspect. Subject to what is observed above petition is disposed of.”
The plea had also challenged 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.
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.
On March 25, a three-member Supreme Court-appointed in-house committee visited the residence of Justice Varma, commencing its inquiry in the matter.
The apex court collegium also recommended the repatriation of Justice Varma to his parent Allahabad High Court. The Delhi High Court had withdrawn work from the judge following a directive from the CJI.
On March 22, the CJI constituted the three-member committee to conduct an in-house inquiry into allegations and decided to upload on the SC website the inquiry report of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya of the Delhi High Court. It included photos and videos of the alleged discovery of a huge stash of cash.
Justice Varma denounced any insinuation and said no cash was ever placed in the storeroom either by him or any of his family members. (AGENCIES)
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