Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankar on Monday questioned the investigation conducted by the three-judge in-house committee into the Justice Yashwant Varma corruption case..Dhankar said that the inquiry committee lacks any constitutional premise or legal sanctity.“Now, just imagine how much labour has gone to Chief Justices of two High Courts. In one High Court [Punjab and Haryana], the coverage area is two states and a union territory. They were involved in an inquiry which did not have any constitutional premise or legal sanctity. Most importantly, it is inconsequential. The inquiry report may be sent to anyone by a mechanism evolved by the court on the administrative side,” he said.The Vice-President said the people do not know if this inquiry committee recovered any electronic evidence, and the country is still waiting to know about the money trail, its purpose and the bigger sharks. “The incident happened, and for a week, the country of 1.4 billion people did not know about this. Just imagine how many such instances may have taken place. Every such instance impacts the common man,” he said. .People do not know if this inquiry committee recovered any electronic evidence, and the country is still waiting to know about the money trail, its purpose and the bigger sharks. Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankar.The Vice-President was speaking at the launch of the book titled The Constitution We Adopted, edited by Senior Advocate Vijay Hansaria. In his speech, Dhankar focused extensively on Justice Varma’s case and appreciated former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna for putting the initial report in the case in the public domain. This restored some confidence, he said. On May 8, then CJI Khanna had forwarded the findings of the in-house committee to both the President and the Prime Minister of India. This, after Justice Varma refused to resign from judgeship even after the panel indicted him for the recovery of cash from his residence in Delhi..Dhankar stressed that there is a need to revisit the Supreme Court judgment of 1991 in the case of K Veeraswami v. Union of India, which established the mechanism for the in-house probe. He claimed that the judgment provides an impregnable cover and immunity to the judges, which, in Justice Varma’s case, handicapped the top court and the executive. He added that a “scaffolding of impunity” has risen, “neutralising all salvos of accountability and transparency”, and the time is now to change it. “Names are floating today. Several other reputations have become fragile. The system will get purified, it will get an image makeover once the culprits are brought to justice. Everyone is innocent till proven otherwise. This incident is the concrete manifestation of what ails the system today.”.He concluded that only a thorough and scientific probe can lay to rest this controversy. .[Read live-coverage]
Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankar on Monday questioned the investigation conducted by the three-judge in-house committee into the Justice Yashwant Varma corruption case..Dhankar said that the inquiry committee lacks any constitutional premise or legal sanctity.“Now, just imagine how much labour has gone to Chief Justices of two High Courts. In one High Court [Punjab and Haryana], the coverage area is two states and a union territory. They were involved in an inquiry which did not have any constitutional premise or legal sanctity. Most importantly, it is inconsequential. The inquiry report may be sent to anyone by a mechanism evolved by the court on the administrative side,” he said.The Vice-President said the people do not know if this inquiry committee recovered any electronic evidence, and the country is still waiting to know about the money trail, its purpose and the bigger sharks. “The incident happened, and for a week, the country of 1.4 billion people did not know about this. Just imagine how many such instances may have taken place. Every such instance impacts the common man,” he said. .People do not know if this inquiry committee recovered any electronic evidence, and the country is still waiting to know about the money trail, its purpose and the bigger sharks. Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankar.The Vice-President was speaking at the launch of the book titled The Constitution We Adopted, edited by Senior Advocate Vijay Hansaria. In his speech, Dhankar focused extensively on Justice Varma’s case and appreciated former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna for putting the initial report in the case in the public domain. This restored some confidence, he said. On May 8, then CJI Khanna had forwarded the findings of the in-house committee to both the President and the Prime Minister of India. This, after Justice Varma refused to resign from judgeship even after the panel indicted him for the recovery of cash from his residence in Delhi..Dhankar stressed that there is a need to revisit the Supreme Court judgment of 1991 in the case of K Veeraswami v. Union of India, which established the mechanism for the in-house probe. He claimed that the judgment provides an impregnable cover and immunity to the judges, which, in Justice Varma’s case, handicapped the top court and the executive. He added that a “scaffolding of impunity” has risen, “neutralising all salvos of accountability and transparency”, and the time is now to change it. “Names are floating today. Several other reputations have become fragile. The system will get purified, it will get an image makeover once the culprits are brought to justice. Everyone is innocent till proven otherwise. This incident is the concrete manifestation of what ails the system today.”.He concluded that only a thorough and scientific probe can lay to rest this controversy. .[Read live-coverage]
