Rajya Sabha MP and Supreme Court Bar Association president Kapil Sibal has said the top court’s decision to make public an internal inquiry report in the Justice Yashwant Varma episode sets a “dangerous precedent”. Justice Varma has been at the centre of a storm ever since cash was allegedly found at his New Delhi home during a fire on March 14 and has been transferred from the Delhi High Court to his parent High Court in Allahabad. The Supreme Court on March 22 announced a three-member Committee comprising Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sheel Nagu, Himachal Pradesh High Court Chief Justice G S Sandhawalia, and Karnataka High Court judge Justice Anu Sivaraman would conduct an inquiry. The court also made public a redacted internal inquiry report by the Delhi High Court and also uploaded videos and photographs that Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora purportedly shared with Delhi Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya. On the decision to make these documents public, Sibal said at The Indian Express’s Idea Exchange session, “That is in their wisdom and whether that was right or wrong, only time will tell. Because what happens is that the source of the document is the court itself, and then people tend to believe it. Whether it is true or not is something that will be decided later. It is a dangerous precedent, according to me. The institutional response should be a mechanism that the institution must put in place in writing as to what should happen. Because under the Constitution, they don’t really have any powers except Parliament impeaching the person. It is for them to think about how to deal with it.” Sibal further said, “Quite frankly, this should be decided in consultation with the Bar. We know as much about judges, that they know. There should be a broad-based committee which discusses these issues and then have a mechanism to deal with these issues … If you put out these things in the public domain, the institution has already lost.” On the Justice Varma incident, Sibal said, “Till such time the inquiry is completed, I don’t think any responsible citizen of India should comment on it, nor should the Bar take positions that we will go on strike because you assume somebody is guilty, and I hope this country continues with the principle that till a person is found guilty, he is innocent, and in this case even the inquiry is not completed.” However, Sibal emphasised that such incidents should bring forth an institutional response of implementing mechanisms in place. “The issues relating to the judiciary are very serious,” he said. “There are three kinds of problems. One is the issue of financial corruption and there is no mechanism to deal with it. Then, alleged sexual misconduct. The third kind is there is open alignment with a political ideology. This brings in Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay in West Bengal, Justice Shekhar Yadav … and if you see over the years, the judiciary has not responded to these issues institutionally and that’s very very disturbing because if you don't institutionally respond to it, then the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha or a political party which is in power will say we want NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission) to be revived. As if the NJAC has anything to do with the allegations. So, this is the real problem. We should be having debates on why the institution is not responding to its own failings in dealing with issues that reduce the credibility of the public in the institution and that is very serious.”
