Vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday said he hoped an FIR will be registered with regard to the recovery of a large stash of cash at a judge’s official residence in New Delhi in March this year.
Addressing students at National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS) in Kochi, Dhankhar said, “I am a concerned man. Whether this is an incident in isolation or there are other similar incidents.’’
Dhankhar said equality before law means every crime must be investigated. “If the money is so huge in volume, we have to find out: is it tainted money? What is the source of this money? How was it stocked in the official residence of a judge? It belonged to whom?”
“Find out those who are culpable. Bring them to justice… So far, there has been no FIR. The government at the central level is handicapped because an FIR cannot be registered in view of a judgment of the Supreme Court rendered in the early ’90s.’’
Observing that several penal provisions are violated in the process, he said, “I do hope an FIR will be registered. “We must go to the root of the matter. Our judiciary, in which people’s faith is unshakable, its very foundations have been shaken.’’
Dhankhar’s statement comes amid reports that Justice Yashwant Varma was facing an impeachment in Parliament after an unspecified amount of cash was found at his official residence following a fire in March this year. Justice Varma has denied all allegations and submitted responses to both the Delhi High Court Chief Justice and a Supreme Court-appointed panel.
The Vice President likened the recovery of cash from the judge’s residence to the ‘Ides of March’ — a reference to Shakespeare’s famous play Julius Caesar and a symbol of looming misfortune.
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“Our judiciary faced its own Ides of March on the night intervening March 14th and 15th… There was cash in large quantity at the residence of a judge. I say so because it is now in public domain, officially put up by the Supreme Court… Now the point is, if cash was found, the system should have moved immediately and the first process would have been to deal with it as a criminal act,’’ said Dhankhar. He said the “citadel is tottering” because of this incident and hence the issue must be examined.
The Vice President, who said he was of the view that judges should be protected from frivolous litigations, also expressed his concern over the delay in revealing the recovery of the cash. “Some things are worrisome… It was only after about seven days that we came to know about this ghastly crime.”
Referring to judges taking up assignments after retirement, he said, “Now we have post-retirement posts for judges. Not all can be accommodated…. There is pick and choose. When there is pick and choose, there is patronage. It is seriously impairing our judiciary.’’
