The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that it had listed for hearing a petition seeking the registration of an FIR against Delhi High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma over the alleged discovery and removal of cash from his official residence during an accidental blaze on the intervening night of March 14 and 15. “Your matter has been listed.,” Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna told advocate Mathews Nedumpara as he requested the bench to hear it urgently. The CJI asked him not to make any public statements and added that he would get the date of hearing from the registry. The counsel told the bench, also comprising Justice Sanjay Kumar, that “the only thing (needed to be done is) FIR has to be registered against the judge”. Nedumpara complemented the CJI for making public the communication and other documents related to the controversy. “Your lordship has done a wonderful job. the publishing of the video-the burnt notes,” he said. Another petitioner in the case said that agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, the income tax department, etc. would have gone after him if so much money was found with any businessman. The Supreme Court had in the 1991 ruling in K Veeraswami Vs. Union of India held that prior approval of the Chief Justice of India is mandatory for registering a criminal case under Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code against a sitting high court or Supreme Court judge. The petition challenges this. “The consequence of the aforesaid direction, that no FIR shall be filed, was certainly not present in the minds of the Hon'ble judges. The said direction creates a special class of privileged men/women, immune from the penal laws of the land. Our judges, except for a minority, and not a microscopic one, are men and women of the greatest of erudition, integrity, learning and independence. Judges do not commit crimes. But incidents where judges are caught red handed accepting money as in the case of Justice Nirmal Yadav or in the recent case of Justice Yashwant Varma, so too, being involved POCSO and other cases, cannot be denied. The judgement in K Veeraswami’s case, to the knowledge of the petitioners has stood in the way of an FIR being registered even in an offence involving Pocso,” the plea said.
