All three charges against Justice Yashwant Varma were proved. But the 150-page report also records that the cash was never seized or counted, no panchnama was drawn, its exact amount remains unknown and the Committee did not find that the judge personally removed the currency
New Delhi: The three-member Judges Inquiry Committee has held all three charges against Justice Yashwant Varma proved. But the same 150-page report records an extraordinary failure at the very beginning of the case: the cash which triggered the entire controversy was never seized, never counted, never inventoried and never subjected to physical verification. Not even one ₹500 note was preserved. There was no panchnama. There was no inventory. There was no weighing or sampling. The storeroom was not immediately sealed. Cleaning took place after the fire. And when the premises were subsequently inspected, the currency seen by several fire and police personnel was no longer there.
This is what emerges from a close reading of the statutory inquiry report submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on May 18, 2026, under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968. The Committee comprised Supreme Court judge Justice Aravind Kumar as Presiding Officer, Bombay High Court Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and senior advocate B.V. Acharya. The report is categorical in its final conclusion. Article I, Article II and Article III framed against Justice Varma have all been proved. But what exactly has been proved is important.
The Committee has not recorded an exact amount of cash. It has not held that Justice Varma personally owned the currency. It has not been found that he personally carried away or physically removed the notes from the storeroom. What it has held is that substantial unexplained ₹500 denomination currency notes were present in a storeroom within his official premises; that the room remained within his effective control; that the currency and other material evidence were not preserved; and that the explanations subsequently offered by him did not satisfactorily account for the presence, source or later disappearance of the currency.
That distinction may get lost in the political and public debate surrounding the case. It should not get lost in the documentary record.
The cash was there. But it was never seized
The case began with the fire during the intervening night of March 14 and 15, 2025, at Justice Varma’s official residence at 30, Tughlaq Crescent in New Delhi. Justice Varma was not physically present when the fire broke out. Delhi Fire Services personnel reached the residence and undertook firefighting and cooling operations. Police personnel subsequently reached the premises. What several of them said they saw inside the storeroom became the foundation of the inquiry.
Fire Operator Ankit Sehwag told the Committee that during the firefighting operation he saw bundles of ₹500 denomination notes spread over an area of around seven to eight feet from the entrance. Fire personnel Pradeep Kumar and Pravindra Malik were also referred to in the evidence. Another fire official, Bhanwar Singh, described bundles of ₹500 notes near the entrance and similar burnt and half-burnt bundles scattered inside the room. Pravindra Malik said currency notes were spread across the storeroom from the beginning of the door till the other end. Police witnesses also spoke about heaps and bundles of burnt and half-burnt ₹500 notes.
The witnesses did not give identical descriptions. Some spoke of heaps, some bundles, some notes scattered on the floor and some notes stacked on a ledge. The Committee noticed these variations but did not find them destructive of the central evidence. What the witnesses consistently described, according to the Committee, was a substantial quantity of ₹500 denomination currency notes in burnt, half-burnt, wet or scattered condition.
One witness, Head Constable Roop Chand, was asked during cross-examination whether the amount was above ₹5 lakh. His response was that ₹5 lakh was “too small” compared to what he had seen and that the amount was much more. Yet the Committee refused to convert such descriptions into an exact rupee figure. The reason is simple. Nobody counted the money.
The report specifically records that no currency was seized, no panchnama was prepared, no inventory was made, and there was no counting, weighing, separation or sampling of the notes. The Committee therefore says it would not be justified in returning a finding about an exact rupee amount. It also refused to mechanically accept descriptions such as four or five sacks or bags when there was no reliable material permitting precise quantification. At the same time, it rejected the argument that inability to determine the exact amount meant that the presence of substantial currency itself had not been established.
The Committee’s words are significant. It found that the videos, photographs and oral evidence established that the quantity of burnt or semi-burnt currency notes was “huge and shocking in size and magnitude”. Therefore, whatever estimates may have circulated outside the inquiry, the statutory Committee itself has not put a rupee value on the cash. It says there was substantial currency. It does not say how many lakhs or crores.
Why did the police not seize even one note?
The report raises an equally serious question about the conduct of officials who first reached the scene. If police personnel saw large quantities of burnt or half-burnt currency at the official residence of a sitting High Court judge, why was not even one note seized? Why was no sample taken to establish whether the notes were genuine? Why was the room not sealed? Why was no panchnama prepared?
Head Constable Roop Chand was specifically questioned about this. According to the report, he said that because of the sensitivity of the matter involving a sitting High Court judge, he acted in accordance with instructions from the Station House Officer. He also acknowledged that he had not sealed the storeroom.
The Committee does not excuse what happened. It describes non-seizure and absence of a panchnama as lapses. In its cumulative assessment, it calls the failure to seize, inventory, sample or preserve the currency a material institutional lapse. The lapse affected exact quantification and physical verification. That finding is important because this was no ordinary fire scene. The alleged discovery involved a constitutional functionary. Police were present. Fire officials were present. Photographs and videos were being taken. Yet the physical evidence around which the entire controversy would subsequently revolve was left where it was. And later it disappeared.
The Committee nevertheless held that this failure did not wipe out the evidence of the independent officials who had already seen the currency. It treated electronic and photographic evidence as corroborative and not as the sole foundation of its finding. The forensic material placed before the Committee indicated that the relevant videos were neither tampered with nor morphed and had been taken from mobile phones identified by witnesses present at the scene. Thus, the Committee’s conclusion on the existence of the currency rests primarily on the official witnesses, supported by photographs and videos. The problem begins after that point.
Cash seen at night, gone later
The report treats the presence of the currency and its later non-availability as two separate questions. On the first, it says the evidence is sufficient. On the second, the trail becomes more complicated. After the fire and after the first responders had left, cleaning activity took place in and around the storeroom.
The evidence of C.G. Rawat, referred to by the Committee as PW-9, assumes importance here. Rawat stated that after the fire had been extinguished, he saw household staff and Justice Varma’s Private Secretary Rajinder Singh Karki near the storeroom. According to his evidence, when he offered help, Mohd. Rahil told him to go and perform his duty at the gate. Rawat said that when he passed the storeroom again later, Karki and Rahil were still engaged in cleaning work. In the morning, burnt household articles had been kept outside and the cleaning had been completed.
The Committee also examined call-detail material showing communication during the relevant period between Justice Varma and persons attached to his establishment. It was careful about how far that material could be taken. The Committee says it did not use the call records to infer the contents of any conversation. It relied only on the fact and timing of contact. From there, however, it asks questions which remain unanswered.
What was communicated to Justice Varma? What did Karki and Rahil tell him? Were they asked anything about what they had seen? Were they told to preserve the site? Why was the storeroom not secured? And if currency earlier seen by independent officials was found missing later, why did that not immediately result in a complaint alleging theft, planting, removal or tampering?
The Committee says no satisfactory explanation was forthcoming. But the report also stops short of a finding that Justice Varma personally removed the cash. This is important. At one stage, the Committee specifically says that it was not recording a finding that any particular individual physically removed the currency because such a conclusion could not be made unless the material justified it. Its final finding under Article II is therefore framed differently.
It holds that material evidence was not secured or preserved; that the evidentiary condition of the storeroom was disturbed before lawful sealing and inspection; that persons attached to Justice Varma’s establishment were engaged in cleaning activity; and that the subsequent non-availability of the currency remained unexplained. The finding, the Committee makes clear, does not rest upon proof that Justice Varma personally physically removed the notes. Article II was nevertheless held proved.
No finding that the cash personally belonged to Varma
Article I also needs to be read carefully. The Committee has not returned a finding of personal ownership of the cash in the criminal-law sense. Justice Varma denied knowledge and ownership of the currency. He contended that the storeroom was physically separated from the main residential area and accessible to staff, security personnel and others. The Committee rejected the contention that this meant the storeroom fell outside his institutional or effective control. It noted, among other things, his own statement that a locked liquor cabinet containing personal articles was kept in the storeroom. In the Committee’s view, this weakened the broader contention that the room was simply an uncontrolled space having little connection with him.
But even after rejecting his defence on effective control, the Committee says it is not recording a finding of direct personal ownership of the currency notes in the criminal sense. Its conclusion is instead that substantial unexplained currency was found within the official premises occupied by Justice Varma, that the storeroom formed part of those premises, and that he failed to furnish a satisfactory explanation regarding its presence, source or ownership. That is the basis on which Article I was proved. This is a narrower but still serious finding.
There is a difference between saying that unexplained cash was found in premises under someone’s effective control and saying that the inquiry established that the person personally owned the cash. The Committee has said the first. It has not said the second.
What happened to Justice Varma’s defence?
The report also examines how Justice Varma’s explanation changed as the proceedings progressed. His earliest response dated March 22, 2025, according to the Committee, denied knowledge of cash in the storeroom, denied ownership or placement by himself or his family, said no household or staff member had seen any cash after the fire, and denied that his staff had removed currency.
As the matter progressed, the defence placed greater emphasis on the absence of seizure, inventory and quantification; lack of a panchnama; absence of physical verification; challenges to electronic material; the possibility of planting or conspiracy; and suggestions that first responders or other persons might have been responsible for the later non-availability of the cash. The Committee did not say Justice Varma was required to prove his innocence. In fact, it expressly acknowledges that he was not required to establish his innocence in the abstract.
But once the presence of substantial currency within the official premises had been established through the evidence of official witnesses, the Committee held that the alternative explanations advanced by him required some supporting material if they were to displace those established facts. The Committee found none. It says no person was identified as having planted the currency. No credible source or owner was disclosed. No material established that fire or police personnel removed it. No defence witness was produced to substantiate the theories of conspiracy, planting, staff involvement or removal.
The Committee eventually characterised the explanations as evasive, incomplete and misleading when tested against the evidence before it. Article III was therefore also proved.
Three charges proved. But another question remains
The statutory inquiry has thus reached its conclusion.
Article I: proved.
Article II: proved.
Article III: proved.
The findings against Justice Varma are serious and unambiguous. But the 150-page report also exposes something that cannot be ignored merely because the charges against the judge have been proved. A substantial quantity of ₹500 notes was seen by public officials at the official residence of a sitting High Court judge. Police were present. Fire officials were present. Videos and photographs were taken. But the currency was not seized. It was not counted. It was not inventoried. There was no panchnama. Not even one note was preserved for examination. The scene was not immediately sealed. Cleaning was permitted to take place. And by the time the premises were inspected later, the currency was gone.
The Committee has held Justice Varma accountable under the Articles of Charge before it. But the same report records a material institutional lapse on the part of the system that first handled the scene. That leaves a question which goes beyond Justice Varma and which the parliamentary finding by itself does not close:
When the most important physical evidence in a case involving a constitutional functionary was lying before police and other public officials, how was it allowed to disappear without ever entering lawful custody?
That is the other story contained in this report. And it deserves an answer.
Part II: After the Fire — The Cleaning, the Calls and the Missing Currency Trail
