Cash-at-home row: Lok Sabha forms 3-member panel to probe allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma

LOK Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced a three-member panel to probe allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma, linked to a cash scandal. The inquiry follows a motion signed by 146 MPs, reflecting rising concerns about judicial integrity in India.

Supreme Court judge Aravind Kumar, Madras High Court Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava, and Senior Advocate BV Acharya of the Karnataka High Court will investigate the charges against Justice Varma.

The committee will submit its report as early as possible. The proposal will remain pending till the receipt of the report of the inquiry committee, Birla said.

Before announcing the three-member panel, Speaker Om Birla accepted the motion signed by 146 MPs to impeach Justice Yashwant Verma. In July, the MPs submitted a notice to the Lok Sabha Speaker requesting Justice Varma's removal under Articles 124, 217, and 218 of the Constitution.

Cash-at-home scandal

The issue pertains to the discovery of a huge pile of currency notes at an outhouse of Justice Varma's official residence, then a judge of the Delhi High Court, during a fire-fighting operation on 14 March.

A video showed bundles of cash burning in the fire. The recovery led to a huge public controversy.

The then CJI Sanjiv Khanna had constituted an in-house inquiry committee of three judges - Justice Sheel Nagu (then Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court), Justice GS Sandhawalia (then Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court), and Justice Anu Sivaraman (Judge, Karnataka High Court).

SC dismisses plea

The Supreme Court on Thursday, 7 August, dismissed a writ petition filed by Allahabad High Court Justice Yashwant Varma regarding the cash-at-home scandal.

Justice Varma's plea challenged the in-house inquiry report, which indicted him in the case-at-home scandal, and the recommendation made by former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna to impeach him over the recovery of a large sum of unaccounted cash at his official residence in Delhi.