Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 23: Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma, under cloud for alleged recovery of cash from his official residence, has strongly denounced the allegations claiming that neither he nor any of his family members ever placed sack of currency notes in the storeroom as was reported and suspected it to be a conspiracy to frame and malign him.
In his response submitted to Delhi High Court Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya, Justice Varma strongly refuted the allegations and claimed that none of the members of the family was shown any recovery of pile of burnt cash.
Justice Varma filed his reply on chief justice of the Delhi High Court seeking his response in view of the in-house inquiry initiated by the Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna. Justice Varma also criticised the media for hurriedly showing the public alleged recovery of cash from his residence and said the media should have conducted some enquiry before making allegations and defaming him. He insisted that he was not aware of any money or cash lying in the outhouse storeroom.
Strongly denying that he or his family had kept any cash in the storeroom from which the burnt remains of several wads of notes were allegedly recovered, Justice Varma said the room was disconnected from his main residence and was accessible to, and used by, several people.
“This room was generally utilised by all and sundry to store articles such as unused furniture, bottles, crockery, mattresses, used carpets, old speakers, garden implements as well as CPWD (Central Public Works Department) material. This room is unlocked and accessible both from the official front gate as well as the backdoor of the staff quarters. It is disconnected from the main residence and is surely not a room in my house as has been portrayed,” the judge wrote.
“Neither I nor any of my family members had any knowledge of cash nor does it have any bearing or relation with me or my family. No such cash or currency was shown to my family members or staff who were present on that fateful night.”
“I also strongly deny and outrightly reject the insinuation if made, that we removed currency from the storeroom. As stated above, we were neither shown nor handed over any sacks of burnt currency. In fact, and as stated above, the limited debris which was sought to be salvaged continues to exist in one part of the residence,” the Judge said.
Narrating the incident, Justice Varma said a fire broke out in the storeroom situated near the staff quarters of his official residence on the intervening night of March 14-15, 2025. He said this room was generally utilised by all and sundry to store articles such as unused furniture, bottles, crockery, mattresses, used carpets, old speakers, garden implements as well as CPWD material.
“This room is unlocked and accessible both from the official front gate as well as the backdoor of the staff quarters. It is disconnected from the main residence and is surely not a room in my house as has been portrayed and suggested in the media.
“On that date, my wife and I were not in Delhi and travelling in Madhya Pradesh and it was only my daughter and aged mother who were at home. I returned to Delhi only on the evening of March 15, 2025, from Bhopal travelling on an Indigo flight with my wife,” he said.
He shared that when the fire broke out around midnight, the Fire Service was alerted by his daughter and private secretary whose calls would be duly recorded. “During the exercise to douse the fire, all staff and the members of my household were asked to move away from the scene of the incident in view of safety concerns. After the fire was doused and when they went back to the scene of the incident, they saw no cash or currency on site.
“I state unequivocally that no cash was ever placed in that storeroom either by me or any of my family members and strongly denounce the suggestion that the alleged cash belonged to us. The very idea or suggestion that this cash was kept or stored by us is totally preposterous,” Justice Varma said.
He said suggestions that one would store cash in an open, freely accessible and commonly used storeroom near the staff quarters or in an outhouse verges on the incredible and incredulous. “It is a room which is completely disassociated from my living areas and a boundary wall demarcates my living area from that outhouse. I only wish the media had conducted some enquiry before I came to be indicted and defamed in the press,” the Judge said.
The alleged discovery of huge stash of cash was reported following a fire at Justice Varma’s Delhi residence at around 11.35 p.m. on the night of Holi on March 14 for which the fire department personnel rushed to the spot to douse the flames.
In a statement on Friday the Supreme Court had said the Delhi High Court Chief Justice had initiated an in-house inquiry against Justice Varma; separately, there was a proposal to transfer the Judge to the Allahabad High Court. The CJI Khanna had also constituted a three-member committee consisting of Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sheel Nagu, Himachal Pradesh Chief Justice G.S. Sandhawalia and Karnataka High Court Judge, Justice Anu Sivaraman to conduct an inquiry into the alleged recovery of cash from Justice Varma’s residence.
To ensure total transparency, the Delhi Chief Justice’s in-house inquiry report, including the response of Justice Yashwant Varma, photos and videos were uploaded on the Supreme Court website late on Saturday. The Delhi CJI in his report submitted to CJI Khanna had said, “on examining the incident reported the material available and the response of Justice Yashwant Varma, what I find is that the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, in his report on March 15 has reported that as per the guard posted at the residence of Justice Varma, the debris and other partially burnt articles were removed from the room where the fire had broken out in the morning of March 15.
“The enquiry conducted by me, prima facie, does not reveal the possibility of entry or access to the room by any person other than those residing in the bungalow, the servants, the gardeners and the CPWD personnel, if any. Accordingly, I am of the prima facie opinion that the entire matter warrants a deeper probe.”
Justice Varma has noted in his reply that the allegations were baseless and had already scarred his reputation. He said a conspiracy was afoot to malign him. The incident was part of a sequence of events to defame him, including unfounded allegations against him which circulated in the social media in December 2024.
“I would be grateful if an enquiry is made with respect to my functioning as a judge and what is the perception of the legal fraternity with regard to my integrity and honesty in the discharge of my judicial functioning… What baffles me is the complete absence of any sacks of allegedly burnt currency which were ever recovered or seized. We categorically assert that neither my daughter, private secretary or household staff were shown the so-called sacks of burnt currency… I wonder who could countenance an allegation that currency would be kept in a storeroom in a corner of the house and which is freely accessible from amongst others the back wicker gate also,” he said in his reply to the Delhi Chief Justice.
CJI Khanna has meanwhile asked Chief Justice Upadhyaya not to assign any judicial work to Justice Varma. The Delhi High Court Chief Justice has agreed with the proposal of the CJI to repatriate Justice Varma to the Allahabad High Court in the interest of the “better administration of justice.”
The Chief Justice of India would now be himself monitoring the progress of the enquiry against the judge. The response by Justice Varma to the Delhi High Court Chief Justice contains his answers to three questions, which were cardinal points of the prima facie enquiry.
The first question was how he accounted for the “presence of money in the room located in your bungalow.” To this, Justice Varma has replied that he “was never aware of any money or cash lying in the outhouse storeroom.” He said neither he nor his family members or staff had anything to do with the cash allegedly found in the gutted room.
More importantly, the judge said “no such cash was shown to my family members or staff who were present on that fateful night.” To the second question of the enquiry to explain the “source of money,” Justice Varma said the question does not arise as he had nothing to do with the cash allegedly found and videotaped.
The Police Commissioner’s report on the incident said a guard had seen a person removing articles from the gutted room on the morning of March 15. To the query on who had removed the “burnt currency” from the room on the morning of March 15, Justice Varma said he strongly rejected the insinuation that “we” had removed currency from the storeroom. “We were neither shown nor handed any sacks of burnt currency. The debris from the gutted room continues to exist in a part of the residence,” he had replied.
Justice Varma said he had inspected the storeroom along with an officer of the Delhi High Court and was “totally shocked by the contents of the video depicting something which was not found on site as I had seen it.” He expressed apprehension that it was a conspiracy to frame and malign him. “I unequivocally State that neither I nor any of my family members had stored cash or kept any cash or currency in that storeroom at any point of time,” Justice Varma said.
Meanwhile, a senior advocate and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Kapil Sibal while refusing to comment on alleged recovery of cash at Justice Varma’s residence pending an inquiry, said the confidence in the judicial system seems to be on the decline in people’s perception. He said alternatives could only be found when both the government and the judiciary accept that the systems in place, including for judges’ appointments, were not working.
Mr Sibal talked about what ails the judicial system, citing examples of how bail is not being granted in most cases by district and sessions courts, and highlighted the issue of the controversial speech made by Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav of the Allahabad High Court last year.
Asked if he has concerns about the judicial system at large, Mr Sibal said, “What has been happening over several years is that there have been concerns about the judiciary on various aspects, one is the concern about corruption, and corruption has several meanings. One meaning is that a judge renders a judgement because of some pecuniary advantage. The other form of corruption is to work contrary to his oath of office which is that he would render judgements without fear or favour.”
“I will give an example, there is hardly a judge in a district court and the sessions court who grants bail. Now it can’t be that in every case, the magistrates court or the sessions court has to reject bail. In 90-95% of the cases, bail is rejected,” Mr Sibal said, adding that there is something wrong with the system.
Is the judge afraid that if he or she grants bail, what will be the impact of that on the career, the senior advocate asked. Mr Sibal said the third form is that the judges were now openly endorsing a majoritarian culture and taking political positions.
“We had a judge in West Bengal who was openly endorsing the views of a political party and then of course he resigned and joined that particular party. We had a judge who openly said ‘yes I belong to the RSS’. We have justice Shekhar (Yadav) who said in India the ‘majoritarian culture must prevail and only a Hindu can make India ‘vishwaguru’. He used some very derogatory terms for the minority community while sitting as the judge,” Mr Sibal said.
Talking about Justice Yadav’s case, Mr Sibal said an in-house procedure was decided upon but nothing was heard after that. “What happened, what steps were taken, there was a communication to the judge, he apparently disclosed his mind to the in-house procedure. What happened, we don’t know. Should it be made public or not? There are systems that have to be put in place,” he said. “These are things that need to be addressed urgently. Unfortunately, in many of these cases, the Supreme Court has not directly addressed these issues for reasons I cannot possibly fathom,” Mr Sibal said.
