Supreme Court: The Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna has constituted a three-member Committee to conduct an einquiry into the cash-in-house matter against Justice Yashwant Varma, Judge, Delhi High Court, as part of the in-house enquiry which the Court has initiated into the matter.
An in-house einquiry was initiated by the Court after reports surfaced that a huge pile of unaccounted cash amounting to Rs. 15 crores were found from the residence of Justice Varma.
The Committee constitutes of Justice Sheel Nagu, Chief Justice of the Punjab & Haryana High Court; Justice G.S. Sandhawalia, Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court; and Anu Sivaraman, Judge, Karnataka High Court.
The Court has also directed Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya not to assign any judicial work to Justice Yashwant Varma for the time being.
Justice Yashwant Varma’s response
In response to Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya’s letter seeking information on the incident and explanation on account of alleged cash, Justice Varma denied all the allegations stating the following-
“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 verge 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 responded that on the day of fire, he and his wife were not in Delhi and travelling in Madhya Pradesh and it was only his daughter and aged mother who were at home.
Justice Varma’s response highlighted that the fire broke out in the storeroom situated near the staff quarters of his official residence on the intervening night of 14/15 March 2025. The room was generally utilised by all and sundry to store articles such as unused furniture, bottles, crockery, mattresses, used carpets, old speakers, garden implements as well as CPWD material. The said room is disconnected from the main residence and is not a room in his house as has been portrayed and suggested in the article which appeared in the news reports.
Justice Varma also expressed shock over CJ Upadhyaya’s having received the information of an ‘arson’ at his residence, as till that phone call, Justice Varma was led to believe that it was merely a fire caused by a short circuit. Justice Varma also pointed out a that he had accepted the request from CJ Upadhyaya for the PPS to be permitted to visit the site.
Regrading the visit, Justice Varma stated-
“The PPS arrived later that night and when I, my PS along with the PPS inspected the gutted room, no currency was either found nor was any cash in any state seen present on site. This also stands corroborated from the report of which has been provided to me.”
Conspiracy against Justice Varma ?
Justice Varma’s letter signalled that the video and other photographs which had been shared with CJ Upadhyaya by the
Commissioner of Police were completely different, since that depicted something which was not found on site as Justice Varma had seen it.
In this reference, Justice Varma said,
“This clearly appeared to be a conspiracy to frame and malign me.
It also lends credence to my firm belief that the entire incident is part of a sequence of events which occurred in the recent past including the unfounded allegations that circulated on social media in December 2024 [which too I had apprised you about
during the course of our meeting] and your first reaction of the incident being that of arson. It was the lack of knowledge of connection with the purported discovery of currency is what prompted my reaction in our first interaction in respect of this episode and when I had alluded to a conspiracy to frame me.”
Source: Supreme Court Press Release
