New Delhi, March 21: The Supreme Court on Friday initiated an internal probe against Delhi High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma as per the established “in-house procedure” for the constitutional judiciary, after a large amount of unaccounted cash was reportedly discovered at his residence in the national capital.
CJI Sanjiv Khanna has sought a report from the Delhi High Court Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and briefed puisne judges of the top court.
As per media reports, a huge amount of cash was found last week when a fire brigade had gone to Justice Varma’s residence to douse a fire, when the judge was not at home.
As per the “in-house procedure”, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) is competent to receive complaints against the conduct of judges of the Supreme Court and the Chief Justices of the High Courts.
Similarly, the Chief Justices of the High Courts are competent to receive complaints against the conduct of High Court judges. The apex court Court, in its full Court meeting in May 1997 had adopted two resolutions.
The first resolution “The Restatement of Values of Judicial Life” lays down certain judicial standards and principles to be observed and followed by the judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, and the second “in-house procedure” provides for taking suitable remedial action against judges who do not follow universally accepted values of judicial life including those included in the Restatement.
As per the SC judgment in the Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India case, it has been held that the report of a committee constituted as a part of the “in-house procedure” is not liable to be made public.
Reportedly, the Supreme Court Collegium recommended the transfer of Justice Varma back to his parent High Court – the Allahabad High Court. The statement is yet to be uploaded on the official website of the apex court.
As per the existing Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), the proposal for transfer of HC judges is initiated by the CJI in consultation with four senior-most puisne judges of the Supreme Court, commonly known as Collegium.
The MoP further provides that the CJI is also expected to take into account the views of the Chief Justice of the High Court from which the judge is to be transferred, as also the Chief Justice of the High Court to which the transfer is to be effected, besides taking into account the views of one or more Supreme Court judges who are in a position to offer views.
Born in January 1969, Justice Varma obtained a law degree from Rewa University and practised mainly on the civil side handling varied nature of matters relating to constitutional, industrial disputes, corporate, taxation, environment, and allied branches of law. He served as Chief Standing Counsel for the State of UP from 2012 till August 2013, when he was designated as ‘senior advocate’ by the Allahabad High Court.
Justice Varma was elevated as an Additional Judge in October 2014 and was transferred to the Delhi High Court in October 2021. At the Delhi High Court, Justice Varma is currently the third senior most judge dealing with writ petitions challenging the constitutional validity of any law, statutory rule, regulation or notification pertaining to municipal tax.
As per the latest roster, Justice Varma-led division bench, which also comprised Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, dealt with sales tax cases and GST cases, Letters Patent Appeals, regular First Appeals (Original Side), Company Appeals, matters to be heard by Commercial Appellate Division, etc.
–IANS
