The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a petition seeking an FIR pressing criminal charges against Justice Yashwant Varma, the former Delhi High Court judge in whose residence wads of unaccounted currency were allegedly found during an accidental fire on March 14.
A bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan told petitioner Mathew J. Nedumpura that since a three-member committee of judges had submitted a report to the Chief Justice of India and it had been forwarded to the Prime Minister and the President, the court cannot pass any direction at this juncture.
“You file a representation before them (the Prime Minister and the President). If there is no action, then you come to us,” Justice Oka told Nedumpura and the two co-petitioners. The court refused to entertain the petition.
The petitioners said that since the judges’ committee had recorded adverse findings against Justice Varma, who was repatriated to his parent Allahabad High Court after the controversy, an FIR for criminal offences relating to corruption and other crimes under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 should be registered against him.
An earlier bench headed by Justice Oka had declined a similar request by the same petitioners last month on the ground that an in-house panel was probing the matter and any decision can be taken only thereafter.
Since the in-house panel had on March 3 submitted its report to then CJI Sanjiv Khanna, in which it had found certain incriminating materials against Justice Varma, the petitioners have now sought an FIR against the judge.
On May 8, Justice Khanna had written to the President and the Prime Minister, enclosing a copy of the inquiry report submitted by the judges’ panel which probed the allegations against Justice Varma.
Along with the report, the CJI had enclosed the response filed by Justice Varma to the findings recorded against him by the judges’ panel.
In terms of the in-house procedure evolved by the Supreme Court, if a judge refuses to resign upon being told to do so by the CJI, the latter can ask the President and the Prime Minister to initiate steps for impeachment.