The Supreme Court has dismissed an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, seeking a copy of the report submitted by the in-house inquiry committee in respect of the allegations against Justice Yashwant Varma, along with the letter written by the Chief Justice of India to the President and the Prime Minister, while forwarding the inquiry report to them.
The Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the Supreme Court rejected the plea, filed by one Amritpal Singh Khalsa on May 9, on the grounds that the information could not be provided in view of the tests outlined by the Supreme Court in its judgment dated November 13, 2019, passed in Civil Appeal Nos.10044-45/2010 (CPIO, Supreme Court of India Vs. Subhash Chandra Agarwal, (2020) 5 SCC 481), regarding independence of judiciary, proportionality test, fiduciary relationship, invasion of the right to privacy and breach of duty of confidentiality etc, as also with reference to provisions of Section 8(1)(e) and Section 11(1) of the RTI Act, 2005.
As per Section 8(1)(e), information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship is exempted from disclosure unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information. According to Section 11, third-party information is exempted from disclosure.
The reply was given by the Supreme Court Additional Registrar and CPIO on May 21.
On May 8, the then CJI Sanjiv Khanna had forwarded the report submitted by the in-house inquiry committee to the President and the Prime Minister for further action.
The three-judge panel was constituted on March 22 by the former CJI, over the alleged recovery of a huge stash of cash from a store-room at the out-house of Justice Varma’s official residence during a firefighting operation on March 14. At that time, Justice Varma was a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court. He was later transferred to the Allahabad High Court, his parent High Court. Judicial work has been withdrawn from Justice Varma as per the instructions of the CJI.
The in-house committee, comprising Justice Sheel Nagu (Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court), Justice GS Sandhawalia (Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court) and Justice Anu Sivaraman (judge of Karnataka High Court), reportedly indicted Justice Varma, following which the then CJI Khanna asked for his resignation. After Justice Varma refused to resign, the CJI forwarded the inquiry committee report to the President and the Prime Minister for further action.
While the preliminary report of the Delhi High Court Chief Justice and the response of Justice Varma, along with the photos and videos taken by the Delhi Police, were uploaded on the Supreme Court’s website, the final inquiry report was not made public.
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