Om Birla, Lok Sabha speaker, formed a panel of three members on Tuesday to probe weighty allegations against a former high court judge, Justice Yashwant Varma, and this panel is likely to award action to the Indian lawyer, CJI. This step follows a major scandal when a substantial amount of burned and severely burnt money was found at the house of Varma by firefighters, as their house caught fire on March 14. When the incident occurred, Justice Varma was a member of the bench of the Delhi High Court.
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Justice Aravind Kumar will head the panel along with Madras High Court Chief Justice Maninder Mohan and senior advocate B.V. Acharaya. They will be mandated to enquire into the circumstances in which the cash was recovered and go through the misconduct verdicts of a previous inquiry that was constituted by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court rejected the plea late last week by Justice Varma to strike down the in-house inquiry report, which had found him guilty of being involved in misconduct. Varma responded the following day, March 22, by rejecting the allegations and providing a written response to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), who had questioned them on an earlier day, March 21. The next move was led by CJI Sanjiv Khanna, who constituted a three-member panel to investigate further, and the evidence related to the incident, such as photos and videos, was subsequently made available on the Supreme Court website.
Upon hearing the case on July 30, the Supreme Court was unlikely of the actions of Justice Varma and said that it did not give confidence. The bench further said that CJI is not a post office and he has constitutional duties to preserve the integrity of the judges. The court also raised the question of why Varma involved himself with the in-house panel first and then only went to the apex court, which supposedly is an indicator that he should have challenged the process earlier.
The inquiry will be followed with much interest since it brings into play rare judicial misconduct proceedings against a sitting high court judge.
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