Supreme Court rejects plea seeking FIR against Justice Varma amid cash row

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea seeking the registration of a first information report against Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma amid allegations that unaccounted cash was found at his home, Live Law reported.

Calling the petition “premature”, the bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said that the ongoing in-house inquiry would offer several options once it concluded.

The chief justice of India can direct an FIR to be registered or refer the matter to Parliament based on the inquiry report, the court said. “Today it is not the time to consider this petition,” it added.

Unaccounted cash was allegedly recovered at Varma’s official residence when emergency services responded to a fire there on March 14. The judge said he was in Bhopal at the time and claimed that the cash did not belong to him or his family.

According to a 1991 Constitution bench ruling in the K Veeraswami case, a criminal case cannot be filed against a High Court and Supreme Court judge or the chief justices of the High Court without first consulting the chief justice of India, The Hindu reported.

However, the petitioner argued that the ruling had in effect restricted police action by creating a “special class of privileged men/women, immune from the penal laws of the land”.

The court, however,...

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