Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankar on Monday questioned the investigation conducted by the three-judge in-house committee into the Justice Yashwant Varma corruption case.
He questioned the constitutional and legal foundation of the in-house inquiry, suggesting it lacked legitimacy.
VP Dhankhar raised doubts about the effectiveness of the inquiry, pointing out the absence of clarity on whether any electronic evidence was recovered. He said that the nation is still waiting for details about the money trail, its intended use, and whether higher-profile individuals are involved.
“The incident happened, and for a week, the country of 1.4 billion people did not know about this. Just imagine how many such instances may have taken place. Every such instance impacts the common man,” he said .
“People do not know if this inquiry committee recovered any electronic evidence, and the country is still waiting to know about the money trail, its purpose and the bigger sharks,” Dhankhar said adding that it “does not have any constitutional premise or legal sanctity but most importantly it will be inconsequential”, and wondered why no FIR has been registered in the matter yet.
Stressing on the need for an FIR, Dhankhar said, “People are waiting with bated breath… The money trail, its source, its purpose, did it pollute the judicial system? Who are the bigger sharks? We need to find out.”
In his address, Dhankhar said, “…we cannot get away from the ground reality today. We celebrate the book release, but we are confronted with the jarring reality. Our judge’s residence in Lutyens Delhi had burnt notes, cash haul, there is no FIR till date.”
He said in a country governed by rule of law, “there can be no occasion whatsoever to delay even for a moment… because that is ordainment of law. The rule of law is the very foundation of society”.
VP was speaking at the launch of a book, The Constitution We Adopted, edited by senior advocate Vijay Hansaria.Stating that the incident “is agitating mind of billions”, Dhankhar said there is a need for “scientific, forensic, expert, thorough investigation that reveals everything and leaves nothing unrevealed.
The truth needs to be laid bare”.Dhankhar also called for revisiting the 1991 K Veeraswami judgment, which laid down that prior sanction is needed for prosecuting judges, saying it had “erected scaffolding of impunity” around the judiciary.
On March 22, the then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna had set up a three-member in-house committee to inquiry into the allegations around Justice Varma. The committee in its report is learnt to have found the allegations credible.
Justice Varma, who was transferred to Allahabad High Court from Delhi High Court days after the charges surfaced, has denied the allegations.
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