New Delhi: Justice Yashwant Varma could not account for the cash found at his Delhi house, and his staff supervised a cleanup of burnt banknotes, a report by a three-judge panel probing the ‘judge cash row’ has highlighted along with citations of statements of 55 witnesses and electronic evidence. With these, the panel found the misconduct of the Allahabad High Court judge “serious enough” for his removal.
The panel included Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana HC Sheel Nagu, Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh HC G.S. Sandhawalia, and Justice Anu Sivaraman from Karnataka HC.
“Keeping in view the direct and electronic evidence on record, this committee is firmly of the view that there is sufficient substance in the allegations raised in the letter of Hon’ble Chief Justice of India dated 22.03.2025, and the misconduct found, proved is serious enough to call for initiation of proceedings for removal of Justice Yashwant Varma, judge of the Allahabad High Court,” the 64-page report—first published by TheLeaflet—has concluded, rejecting Justice Yashwant Varma’s defences and other conspiracy theories.
During its probe, the panel found that when officials reached Justice Varma’s house after a fire had broken out, they first saw the cash in the storeroom. It also noted that access to the room was “within the covert or active control of Justice Varma and his family members” and found “strong inferential evidence” of the removal of burnt cash from the storeroom in the wee hours of 15 March 2025.
In the report, the panel held that Justice Yashwant Varma’s private secretary, Rajinder Singh Karki, and Rahil, the “most trusted personnel” in the domestic staff, played “instrumental” roles in removing the burnt cash after the firemen and the Delhi Police personnel had left the premises.
In response to queries such as how Justice Yashwant Varma could account for the cash, the Allahabad HC judge did not give any plausible explanations. Instead, he was “projecting a case of flat denial and raising a bald plea of conspiracy”, the report has noted. So, the panel held that the storeroom contained the cash, but its source “could not be accounted for by Justice Varma”.
Last month, the former Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, forwarded the report written by the three-judge panel to the President and the Prime Minister.
The witnesses
The committee relied on several fire department and police eyewitnesses, who claimed to have seen half-burnt piles of cash inside the storeroom. The electronic evidence, video recordings, and photographs, which the forensic lab certificates had duly authenticated, supported their statements.
The panel noted that Justice Yashwant Varma’s domestic staff denied the presence of the cash in the storeroom but that most of them hailed from Prayagraj and had been working with the judge for several years. The staff—the panel highlighted—“cannot be expected to depose against the voice of their master”.
Inquiring into Rahil and Karki and their involvement in the clean-up of burnt notes, the committee found several discrepancies in their statements on their whereabouts post-the fire. In this case, the panel relied on the testimony of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) guards, who said the duo had been supervising the debris clean-up after the fire.
‘Lame explanation’
The report has referred to the conduct of Justice Varma’s daughter, who claimed the room with the burnt banknotes, as seen in a video clip, could be any room other than the storeroom at a different location. However, the committee found it to be a “lame explanation”.
Initially, on 7 April, she informed the committee that she had heard of the half-burnt cash on 15 March when the Delhi HC Chief Justice’s principal private secretary (PPS) visited their family bungalow. However, on 12 April, she wanted to retract the statement via email.
The committee, however, rejected her request after checking the video recording of her statement. “From the demeanour of the witness, we noticed that she is a confident young woman, having been subjected to hostel life throughout her education, apart from being an independent working woman. This belies her statement that she was overwhelmed and panicked by the incidents of the fateful night, which led to her giving an allegedly wrong statement and later seeking to retract it,” the report has noted.
Justice Varma’s defence
In his explanation before the committee, Justice Yashwant Varma relied on the fact that CCTV cameras constantly monitored the entrance of the storeroom under security personnel monitoring, asserting that stashing the cash in that particular room would be highly improbable.
He also informed the committee that the hard disk of the camera footage was inaccessible, while asserting he lost the evidence he could have used if the footage had been retrievable.
The committee concluded: “In the absence of any plausible explanation coming from Justice Varma or his family members or—for that matter—any other witness, this committee is left with no option but to hold that the trust reposed in him was belied by him by allowing highly suspicious material in shape of piles of currency notes to be stashed in the store room.”
The three-judge group also agreed that whether the stashing of money required the tacit or explicit consent of Justice Varma or his family members “is of little significance in the face of the larger concept of breach of public trust and probity expected of the high constitutional office held by Justice Varma”.
While Justice Yashwant Varma alleged a conspiracy against him, the committee noted that he neither pointed to a motive nor a person who might have planted evidence against him.
“It is well nigh impossible for the currency to be planted in the store room of a sitting judge, which is being monitored by static 1+4 guard and a PSO stationed at the gate at all times, apart from the fact that the house abounds with a large number of old and trusted domestic servants with over six staff quarters,” the report has asserted.
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The conspiracy theory angle
Justice Yashwant Varma also submitted that he was not present in the house during the breakout of the fire and returned to the city only the next day, at 5 pm. He claimed to have not visited the storeroom at all after his return until the Delhi HC Chief Justice’s PPS visited him at 9 pm, 15 March.
However, this explanation did not sit well with the committee, which has now observed, “This conduct on the part of Justice Yashwant Varma also is unnatural and defies all logic and leads the committee to come to a conclusion that the correct picture has not been projected and necessarily an adverse inference has to be drawn against him.”
The panel pointed to the “unnatural conduct” of Justice Yashwant Varma, asserting that if there was a conspiracy, “why did he not choose to file a police complaint or take the matter to the HC chief justice or the CJI even?”
The fact that he “quietly” accepted his transfer to the Allahabad HC on 20 March also weighed on the committee, which called his behaviour the “post-incident conduct”.
The committee also concluded that the storeroom was under the physical control of Justice Varma and his family and that “any suspicious item found in the store room will have to be accounted for by Justice Varma or his family members”.
Probe procedure
The in-house committee had the liberty to determine its investigation procedure. It decided to share all the incriminating material against Justice Varma, including statements of all the witnesses recorded during the inquiry. It carried out a spot inspection of Justice Varma’s house in the Tughlak Crescent area and got videography done on the spot, as well.
On 25 March, the panel inspected the spot, and on the next day, it ordered the storeroom sealed. It also examined a total of 55 witnesses, including those from the Delhi fire services, the police department, the personal security officers and other staff attached to Justice Varma, the static CRPF guards, the court staff, and lastly, Justice Varma’s daughter.
The committee obtained the call details of the other staff members associated with Justice Varma from their phone service providers after seizing the devices under the directions of the CJI and sending them to Chandigarh for forensic examination.
For its work, the committee held meetings at the Haryana State Guest House in Chanakyapuri on several occasions throughout March and April.
The issues
The committee had framed three substantive issues to consider. First, how Justice Varma would account for the cash in the storeroom in his house, and second, his explanation for the source of the banknotes. The third question was, “Who removed the burnt money/cash from the room (storeroom) on the morning of 15 March 2025?”
The committee also framed three sub-issues—whether there was any cash in the storeroom, whether the storeroom was inside or outside the premises of the judge’s house, and what justification Justice Varma would give for the banknotes found in the storeroom.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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