Justice Varma one of the finest, govt wants control of judges' appointments: Sibal

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Tuesday alleged that the real motive of the government in moving to bring an impeachment motion against Justice Yashwant Varma for alleged corruption is to take control of the appointment of judges by doing away with the collegium system.

Sibal, who is also a senior advocate, backed Varma and stressed that he was "one of the finest judges that I have argued before".

He also accused the government of adopting a selective approach in handling the cases of Justice Varma and Justice Shekhar Yadav, against whom Opposition MPs have submitted a notice in the Rajya Sabha to move an impeachment motion for making allegedly communal remarks last year.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju has underlined the government's resolve to take all political parties on board in moving the impeachment motion against Justice Varma.

A fire incident at Justice Varma's residence in the national capital in March, when he was a judge at the Delhi High Court, had led to the discovery of several burnt sacks of cash in the outhouse.

Addressing a press conference, Sibal said the intention of the government is to finish the collegium system and take control of the appointment of judges.

On Justice Varma, Sibal said, "I can say with the utmost of responsibility that he (Varma) is one of the finest judges that I have argued before. You ask any lawyer in the high court or Supreme Court, and there is not a whiff of any wrongdoing by this judge. You ask any lawyer in Allahabad (Prayagraj)... judges know their lawyers... lawyers also know the judges.

"It is shocking that you (the government) are targeting a judge against whom there is no evidence and you are protecting a judge against whom there is no evidence required because his statement is in the public domain and there is an impeachment motion pending before the chairman and he has been sitting on it for verification of signatures," Sibal said.

Rijiju wants to bring a motion on the first day of Parliament's Monsoon session to place the Supreme Court's in-house inquiry report in Justice Varma's case in the public domain, he said. "For what? Why are you protecting Shekhar Yadav?" Sibal asked.

Why is the Opposition not realising that the game plan is to take away the power to appoint judges from the collegium and give it to the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), Sibal also asked, adding that this "is the whole purpose of this exercise".

Slamming the government, he said it took a djecision against a high court judge without any inquiry or procedure. "The judge was not even heard. This is absolutely shocking...Unfortunately, the political class is brought into the act," he said.

The apex court set up a three-member committee of Justice Sheel Nagu, chief justice of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, Justice G.S. Sandhawalia, chief justice of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh and Justice Anu Sivaraman, judge of the High Court of Karnataka, for the inquiry into the allegations against Varma. The committee submitted its report to the Chief Justice of India on 4 May, and its findings have not been officially disclosed yet.

Detailing the incident, Sibal said when Varma returned to his residence a few days after the fire, he went to his mother first, and the Supreme Court in-house committee has asked in its report why he did not go to the site of the incident first.

"He doesn't know that there is cash, so why should he go to the site. Immediately, when the personal secretary of the chief justice of the high court comes, they go to the site, and there is no cash. He doesn't know about it until 17 June when the chief justice calls him and shows him the tape, and he is shocked," Sibal said.

Sibal also questioned the committee's logic of asking why the judge did not protest his transfer.

Questioning the Delhi Police's actions, Sibal asked why they did not cordon off the place as they should have done; there were forensic ways of finding out the truth. The in-house inquiry never probed the conduct of the Delhi Police, he added.

"Question is if there was cash, whose was it? How did it come there? 15 crore can't come in just like that, the CRPF is there, there is a back gate, anyone could have come from there," he said, raising questions over the inquiry.

The committee sent the judge a notice, and he filed his reply a few days later, asking for a hearing, which was not granted, Sibal said, adding that the report does not even mention his response.

Sibal claimed that the judiciary is being targeted day in and day out by high constitutional dignitaries of the government. "The judiciary should be aware of what the game plan is. All I want to say is that the independence of the judiciary is at stake," Sibal asserted.

Sibal last week had questioned why Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar has not taken any action on the notice to move an impeachment motion against Justice Yadav of Allahabad High Court, and alleged the government was trying to save the judge who made "totally communal" remarks last year.

The Rajya Sabha MP also said the whole incident smacks of "discrimination" as on the one hand, the Rajya Sabha secretariat wrote to the Chief Justice of India not to go ahead with an in-house inquiry against Yadav as a petition was pending against him before the Upper House, while on the other, it did not do so in the case of Justice Varma.