Panel recommends Justice Varma’s removal

A Supreme Court-appointed panel has recommended initiating impeachment proceedings against former Delhi high court judge Justice Yashwant Varma, at whose residence a large amount of burnt cash was found after a fire broke out in March.

The three-member committee, in its 64-page report, confirmed that cash was found in the store room at Justice Varma’s residence. “Access to the store room has been found to be within the covert or active control of Justice Varma and his family members and that by way of strong inferential evidence, it is established that the burnt cash/money was got removed from the store room during the wee hours of 15.03.2025 from 30 Tughlak Crescent, New Delhi,” it said.

The panel, which recorded statements of 55 witnesses, was of the view that the misconduct found proved to be serious enough to warrant the initiation of proceedings to remove Justice Varma. “Keeping in view the direct and electronic evidence on record, this Committee is firmly of the view that there is sufficient substance in the allegations raised in the letter of Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India dated 22.03.2025 and the misconduct found proved is serious enough to call for initiation of proceedings for removal of Justice Yashwant Varma, Judge of the Allahabad High Court,” it said.

The burnt currency notes were discovered when a fire which broke out at Justice Varma’s house was being doused. The Supreme Court set up an enquiry committee comprising Justice GS Sandhawalia, chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court, Justice Sheel Nagu, chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court and Justice Anu Sivaraman of Karnataka High Court. A report was submitted by the panel to Chief Justice DY Chandrachud on May 4.

Justice Varma, who was transferred to the Allahabad High Court, has dismissed any connection related to the cash that has been seized claiming the allegations were an attempt to frame him. “Neither I nor any of my family members have kept the money in the storeroom,” he wrote to the Delhi High Court Chief Justice DK Upadhaya.

The panel, however, noted that “the unnatural conduct of Justice Yashwant Varma has already been noticed above and the fact that if there was any conspiracy theory why he chose not to file any complaint with the police officials or bring it to the notice of the Chief Justice of the High Court or the Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India regarding the fact that there were planted stories regarding the burning of currency notes in the store room which is part of his house?”

It came to the conclusion that there was no plausible explanation coming from Justice Varma or his family members or for that matter any other witness on the cash recovery case because of which “this Committee is left with no option, but to hold that the trust reposed in him was belied by him by allowing highly suspicious material in the shape of piles of currency notes to be stashed in the store room. Whether this stashing was done with tacit or explicit consent of Justice Varma or his family members is of little significance in the face of larger concept of breach of public trust and property expected of the high constitutional office held by Justice Varma.”

For an impeachment motion against a judge of the constitutional court to be considered in the Rajya Sabha, at least 50 members need to support it. In the Lok Sabha, it has to be backed by a minimum of 100 members.

In April, a month after cash was found at Justice Verma’s residence, Vice president Jagdeep Dhankar had questioned the lack of an FIR in the case and come down heavily on the judiciary over its response to the cash seizure from Justice Verma’s residence, questioning the legitimacy and jurisdictional authority of the committee of three judges investigating the case.

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