NEW DELHI: Rejecting Justice Yashwant Varma’s petition on Thursday, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and A G Masih said it was “unreasonable to even think that despite an incident of the present nature, the CJI would wait for Parliament to take action”.“The CJI, upon being informed of a judge’s remissness, does have the authority – moral, ethical and legal – to take such necessary action as is warranted to keep institutional integrity intact. Any adverse impact on the credibility of the institution could prove dear,” it said, adding that no judge, be it in trial courts, HCs or in the SC, is above the law.SC also scotched attempts by Justice Varma to fault the process of inquiry and the CJI’s decision in not giving him a personal hearing prior to recommending his removal. It said, “The CJI has scrupulously followed the in-house procedure, which does not envisage a hearing to be given to the judge under probe after he has expressed his inability to resign or voluntarily retire.”Writing the 57-page judgment that surgically resected the core of argument senior advocate Kapil Sibal had made to shield the judge’s intriguing behaviour post-discovery of sacks of burning cash at his official residence in Lutyens’ Delhi on March 14 night and his participation in the inquiry without protest, Justice Datta said, “Justice Varma’s conduct does not inspire much confidence for us to entertain the writ petition.”The bench faulted him for not raising objections in time to either the uploading of videos of the burning cash on the SC website, process of inquiry, findings of the committee and recommendation for removal, and questioned the audacity of the judge to doubt the legal sanction behind the in-house procedure.The only solace to Justice Varma was the bench’s remark that since the entire inquiry process is essentially confidential, the then CJI could have avoided being too fair and transparent and not uploaded the video of the burning cash, since it was not required under the in-house procedure. At the same time, Justice Datta pointed out that the judge did not protest the uploading of the video at a relevant time.Justice Datta said even if the CJI had not made any recommendation for Justice Varma’s removal, “Parliament’s power to initiate proceedings for removal of a judge for alleged misbehaviour or incapacity remains unfettered”. It can be initiated even when the committee finds the judge not guilty, it said.“The power, competence, authority and jurisdiction of Parliament to decide what is in the best interests of the nation is left untrammelled by the in-house procedure; hence, it is fallacious to argue that the in-house procedure is a parallel and extra-constitutional mechanism for removal of a Judge,” Justices Datta and Masih said.The bench said it would be quixotic to argue that the in-house inquiry is a removal mechanism. It is only to help the CJI to take a prima facie view of a judge’s alleged misconduct and decide whether or not to recommend the govt to initiate removal motion in Parliament.Rejecting aspersions on the CJI’s actions after the inquiry report, the bench said, “We have no hesitation to say that the CJI is not a mere post office between the inquiry committee and the President/PM that the report is to be forwarded without any remarks/recommendation. The CJI is clearly an important person, if not the most, in the larger scheme of maintaining institutional interest and credibility to ascertain whether a judge has indulged in misconduct.“
