Justice Yashwant Varma Cash Recovery Case: CJI Sanjiv Khanna Meets Bar Leaders, Assures to Consider Demands Against Delhi High Court’s Justice Transfer
New Delhi, March 27: Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and four collegium members on Thursday met bar leaders from six high courts and assured to consider their demands, including withdrawal of the recommendation to transfer Delhi High Court’s Justice Yashwant Varma, Allahabad High Court Bar Association president Anil Tiwari said. The representatives of the various bar associations met the CJI and Justices B R Gavai, Surya Kant, Abhay S Oka and Vikram Nath in the afternoon.
“The five members (of the collegium) listened to us very carefully and told us in a positive way ‘each and every point raised by you in writing will be considered by us strictly within the premises of law. Don’t worry at all’. This is a very big statement by five senior judges,” Tiwari told media persons after meeting the apex court judges. He said the Allahabad High Court Bar Association (AHCBA) would reconsider whether or not to continue with the indefinite strike. “I do not know what decision will be taken,” he said. Justice Yashwant Varma Cash Recovery Row: Supreme Court Declines Urgent Hearing on Plea Seeking FIR, Probe by Delhi Police Against Delhi HC Judge.
The CJI, Tiwari said, told the lawyers about the reasons behind the collegium’s recommendation to transfer Justice Varma to his parent high court at Allahabad. The CJI said in any case, Justice Varma, who has been de-rostered by the Delhi High Court following a directive from Justice Khanna, will not be discharging any judicial function at the Allahabad High Court as well, he added. He said the issue of strike will now be discussed in the general body meeting of the AHCBA and a collective decision will be taken.
“All high courts in India are standing in support of the president of Allahabad association and advocates of Allahabad the high court association. They are really sacrificing their profession for the cause of the nation, for the cause of ensuring a transparent judiciary, the safe judiciary campaign, which we, we have all launched,” another bar leader said. He said the bar leaders have brought to the notice of the CJI the larger issue of corruption in the judiciary.
“One thing that we pointed out to the chief justice and his collegium is our concern is not Justice Yashwant Verma per se, because he is just one of the symptoms. We are looking at the disease itself, and we have pointed out that when the courts or in the collegium is unable to pull out the bad apples. It affects the entire judiciary. So we have pointed out that there is a need to find out some system by which bad apples can be churned out when as and when we find these bad bad apples,” said advocate Yeshwant Shenoy, president of the Kerala High Court Bar Association. Cash at Judge Yashwant Varma’s Home: Delhi High Court Withdraws Judicial Work From Justice With Immediate Effect.
Not only the CJI, but the entire collegium members understood our concern, and they assured us as they also want clean judiciary, he added. “It is not that the judges alone can be corrupt, so it is a entire aspect the bar has put its support behind the judiciary, and things will definitely change from here onward,” another bar leader said. The Allahabad High Court Bar Association has been on an indefinite strike from March 25 to protest the proposed repatriation of Justice Varma to his parent high court.
Earlier in the day, representatives of the bar associations of high courts of Allahabad, Gujarat, Kerala, Jabalpur, Karnataka and Lucknow submitted a memorandum to the CJI’s office and sought an appointment to meet Justice Khanna. While pointing out an alleged tampering of the evidence at Justice Varma’s official residence where burnt wads of cash were purportedly discovered on March 14 during a fire incident, the members questioned non-registration of an FIR in the incident.
In a memorandum, the bar bodies appreciated the steps taken by the CJI to embrace transparency and to make public the report of the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court and other materials on the apex court website. “The bar associations request the Chief Justice and the collegium to withdraw transfer of Justice Yashwant Varma and to withdraw all administrative work in addition to the judicial work which is already withdrawn,” the memorandum said.
Urging the CJI to set the criminal law in motion in the matter, the memorandum claimed as per the report of the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, somebody had removed the articles from Justice Varma’s residence a day after the fire incident. “In these kinds of crimes, there would be involvement of others and non-registration (of an FIR) would adversely affect their prosecution,” it said. The alleged cash discovery happened following a fire at Justice 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 the CJI, to his parent Allahabad High Court.
