Supreme Court sets-up 3-member panel to probe allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma in cash row

The Supreme Court on Saturday constituted a 3-member committee to conduct inquiry into allegations against Delhi High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma after alleged recovery of a large stash of cash from his residence.

The panel set-up by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna comprises of Justices Sheel Nagu, GS Sandhawalia and Anu Sivaraman.

The CJI ordered in-house inquiry after getting a report from Chief Justice of Delhi High Court D K Upadhyay.

Khanna has asked Chief Justice of Delhi HC not to assign any judicial work to Justice Yashwant Varma.

The top court has also asked to upload a report submitted by Chief Justice of Delhi HC, Justice Yashwant Varma's response and other documents on SC website.

The purported discovery of the huge stash of cash happened following a fire at Varma's Lutyens Delhi residence at around 11.35 pm on March 14, prompting the Delhi fire department personnel to rush to the spot and douse it. The quantum of the alleged discovered amount was also not known.

Justice Varma, who is the second senior-most judge in the Delhi High Court, was appointed to the court on October 11, 2021.

The Delhi High Court website shows Justice Varma was enrolled as an advocate on August 8, 1992. He was appointed as an additional judge of the Allahabad High Court on October 13, 2014.

He took oath as a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court on February 1, 2016, before being appointed as a judge of the Delhi High Court on October 11, 2021.

He is currently heading a division bench dealing with cases of sales tax, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), company appeals and other appeals on the original side.

The issue was also raised in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, with Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar saying he will find a mechanism for holding a structured discussion on it.

Raising the issue in the morning session, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh sought the chair's response on judicial accountability and reminded him about a pending notice regarding the impeachment of a judge of the Allahabad High Court.