SC to hear Friday plea seeking FIR into cash discovery at Justice Varma's residence

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is slated to hear on Friday a plea seeking a direction to Delhi Police to lodge an FIR over the alleged discovery of semi-burnt stash of cash from the official residence of high court judge Yashwant Varma. According to the SC's cause list for Friday, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan is scheduled to hear the matter.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna on Wednesday had refused urgent hearing after lawyer Mathews J Nedumpara mentioned the plea.

The plea was filed by Nedumpara and three others on Sunday seeking a direction to police to lodge an FIR in the matter.

The plea also challenges the 1991 judgement in the K Veeraswami case, in which the top court ruled that no criminal proceedings could be initiated against a judge of the high court or the top court without the prior nod of the Chief Justice of India.

The alleged cash discovery happened following a fire at Varma's Lutyens Delhi residence at around 11.35 pm on March 14, prompting the fire officers to rush to the spot.

On Tuesday, the three members of a Supreme Court-appointed in-house committee visited the residence of Justice Varma, commencing its inquiry in the matter.

In the wake of the controversy, the apex court Collegium recommended the repatriation of Justice Varma to his parent Allahabad High Court. He was already de-rostered by the Delhi High Court following a directive from the CJI.

On March 22, the CJI constituted the three-member committee to conduct an in-house inquiry into allegations and decided to upload on the SC website the inquiry report of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya of the Delhi High Court. It included photos and videos of the alleged discovery of a huge stash of cash.

Justice Varma denounced any insinuation and said no cash was ever placed in the storeroom either by him or any of his family members.