NEW DELHI: Acting swiftly on Delhi high court chief justice D K Upadhyay's adverse report against Justice Yashwant Varma on the alleged discovery of a huge pile of cash at his residence, CJI Sanjiv Khanna Saturday appointed a three-judge panel , comprising two HC chief justices and one HC judge, to inquire into the charges. In another important decision, CJI Khanna has asked the Delhi HC chief justice "not to assign any judicial work to Justice Varma for the time being", which would mean he is barred from doing any judicial work till the inquiry panel submits its report to the CJI. This also means that the March 20 decision of the CJI-led five-judge collegium to repatriate Justice Varma to his parent Allahabad HC would be kept in abeyance till the panel concludes inquiry and submits its report.
No time limit fixed by CJI for panel to complete inquiry The Allahabad HC Bar Association had questioned the decision of the collegium, led by CJI Khanna, and comprising Justices B R Gavai, Surya Kant, A S Oka and Vikram Nath, asking if Allahabad HC was a "trash bin". The panel comprising Punjab and Haryana HC CJ Sheel Nagi, Himachal Pradesh HC CJ GS Sandhawalia, and Karnataka HC's Anu Sivaraman will "inquire into the allegations against Justice Varma, a sitting judge of the Delhi HC," the SC said in a late evening press release. No time limit has been fixed by the CJI for the panel to complete inquiry proceedings.
On March 14, the day of Holi celebrations, a fire had allegedly broken .
