Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Justice Yashwant Varma on Friday submitted his resignation to the President amid cash recovery row and impeachment process.This follows the controversy over the alleged discovery of unaccounted cash and the impeachment proceedings initiated against him in Parliament, ANI reported. Justice Varma of the Allahabad high court was earlier transferred from the Delhi high court after the allegations surfaced. He took oath on April 5 last year and was later placed under a Supreme Court-led in-house inquiry, which recommended further action.In his April 9 letter to President, Justice Varma said that he did not want to burden President’s ‘august office’ with the reasons that “constrained” him to resign. “It is with deep anguish that I tender my resignation as Judge of Allahabad HC with immediate effect,” he said in the letter.
What is the case about?
The case centres on allegations that unaccounted cash was recovered after a fire broke out in a storeroom at Justice Varma’s official residence on March 14.Fire tenders responding to the blaze found substantial amounts of cash at the premises. The judge was not present at the residence at the time.The incident triggered an in-house inquiry by the Supreme Court, the findings of which led to the initiation of impeachment proceedings in Parliament.The Lok Sabha Speaker accepted a motion signed by 146 Members of Parliament and set up a three-member committee to investigate the allegations. The panel included Justice Amit Kumar, Justice Maninder Mohan Srivastava and B B Acharya.During earlier hearings, the Supreme Court questioned why Justice Varma did not challenge the in-house inquiry process at the outset and instead participated in it before raising objections later.Justice Varma had argued that the proceedings were unconstitutional and challenged both the inquiry findings and the recommendation made by then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna to initiate impeachment.
