Vinay Kumar
NEW DELHI: Advocates assisting the Justice Aravind Kumar Committee, inquiring into the discovery of cash at Justice Yashwant Varma’s residence in March last year, on Tuesday, said the evidence produced during the proceedings was enough to substantiate the charge, which was one of the grounds cited in the removal motion against him.In a communication to the committee, senior advocates Rajkumar Bhaskar Thakare and Aishwarya Bhati, who were appointed under Judges Inquiry Committee Act to assist the panel, termed Justice Varma’s letter on April 9 withdrawing from the proceedings as an “attempt to construct a narrative of procedural unfairness where none exists, made at the stage when the judge (Varma) was called upon to answer the charges on merits, knowing full well that tendering the resignation would bring an end to these proceedings.”
The two senior advocates said the evidence substantiated the three charges: discovery and possession of unexplained Indian currency within official premises; failing to preserve and causing interference with the material evidence; and furnishing evasive and misleading explanations/statements.They told the committee that it should not let Justice Varma’s unfounded allegations go unanswered, as he had never complained of any procedural irregularity till he decided to withdraw from the proceedings, especially when he was required to rebut the evidence. The committee ought not to countenance such a move as a genuine complaint, they added.Justice Varma had said he was being asked to answer the unanswerable question: where did the money come from? Thakare and Bhati said Justice Varma was best placed to answer how wads of unaccounted for cash came to be placed in a room on his official bungalow premises in the heart of the Lutyens zone area of New Delhi.Terming Justice Varma’s allegation that “witnesses were deliberately dropped in a pattern designed to suppress evidence favourable to him” as misconceived and contemptuous, the advocates said the decision not to examine certain witnesses was taken as the documentary and oral evidence already on record was sufficient to prove the charges.If Justice Varma genuinely felt there was no evidence to prove the charges, then he should have persisted with the inquiry proceedings to get a clean chit, they said.Thakare and Bhati said Justice Varma did not dispute the following: presence of cash in the storeroom of his official residence, removal of burnt/half-burnt wads of cash from the storeroom after first responders left the premises on the night of March 14-15 last year, presence of his family members and personal staff during the firefighting operation, and control of the premises with him or his family members.
