New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday said that all options were open for the Chief Justice of India in the judge cash row while refusing to entertain a petition seeking the registration of an FIR against the Delhi High Court judge, Justice Yashwant Varma.
A bench of Supreme Court justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan told advocate Mathews Nedumpara that given the pending in-house inquiry, it would not be “correct to entertain the plea at this stage”. Nedumpura, also a petitioner in the case, had argued that the police should have registered the case soon after the cash discovery at Justice Varma’s residence. “The common man keeps asking why no FIR was registered on 14 March,” Nedumpura had submitted before the bench.
The judge cash row arose after the alleged discovery of half-burnt cash from Justice Varma’s official residence on the night of 14 March when teams of firemen and the Tughlak Road police reached the site after a call from his personal secretary. The secretary had called about a fire on the residential premises in a storeroom outside the complex where the judge lives with his family.
In response to Nedumpura’s reasoning behind the need for an FIR, the court said: “The in-house inquiry is ongoing. If the report sees something wrong, FIR can be directed, or [the] matter can be referred to the Parliament. Today is not the time to consider it.”
The matter of the alleged unaccounted money came to light only on 21 March, a day after the CJI Sanjiv Khanna-led Supreme Court Collegium decided to repatriate Justice Varma from Delhi to his parent high court in Allahabad. Following a report from Delhi High Court Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya, who recommended a proper inquiry into the matter, considering Justice Varma disputed the inputs and contents of video and photos from the site provided to Upadhyaya by the Delhi Commissioner of Police, the CJI then constituted a three-member panel to conduct a more intensive probe.
Thereafter, in an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court of India, on the directions of CJI Khanna, uploaded all the documents of the case to its website Saturday, making those available for public access.
On Friday, arguing his petition, Nedumpura said: “Why no FIR, no arrest, no seizure, no criminal law put into motion? Why a week to release the scandal? Why did the collegium not say it has the videos, etc.? [The] common man will not understand.”
However, the SC bench said it had reservations about entertaining the petition at the current stage since the in-house enquiry was ongoing. “You must educate the common man about the Supreme Court judgments laying down the law,” Justice Oka told the advocate.
The judge referenced two earlier Supreme Court judgments, which outline a mechanism to address complaints against sitting judges of high courts and the top court. The judgments strictly prohibit the police from filing an FIR on a complaint against them, laying down a probe mechanism instead.
“Heard the petitioner in person. As far as [the] grievance regarding [the] third respondent is concerned, as can be seen from [the] Supreme Court website, the in-house inquiry proceedings are underway,” the court said.
“After the report is submitted by the committee, there will be several options open for the CJI. Therefore, it is not correct to entertain the plea at this stage. At this stage, it is not needed—to reconsider judgments of this court,“ it added, disposing of the plea.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)