Truth and transparency: On the judiciary.
Openness shown in ordering probe against judge should result in accountability too.
In ordering an in-house inquiry by a three-judge panel, the Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, has demonstrated a welcome element of transparency and quelled speculation that the institution may not act decisively on issues of accountability among constitutional court judges. The action taken so far, in the wake of allegations that burnt currency notes were found while a fire was being doused at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma of the Delhi High Court, is multi-pronged. A preliminary report from the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Justice D.K. Upadhyaya, along with a response from the judge concerned, was obtained; it has been decided not to allocate judicial work to Justice Varma; a proposal had already been initiated to send him back to his parent High Court, the Allahabad High Court. The inquiry will be conducted by the Chief Justices of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, and the Himachal Pradesh High Court, and a judge of the Karnataka High Court. It is clear that the CJI wants to get to the bottom of the issue, despite Justice Varma’s categorical denial that the cash had anything to do with him; and his assertion that it is improbable that someone would store a large amount of cash in a virtually unused, unlocked out-house store room that is accessible from both the front and back gates and frequented by residential and government staff.
By posting photographs and a video clip showing wads of burnt notes, as well as Justice Upadhyaya’s report and the reply given by Justice Varma, on the Supreme Court of India’s website, the institution has demonstrated rare transparency. This augurs well as there is reason to believe that the in-house inquiry’s findings may also be made public. However, there are some doubts about the efficacy of the probe mechanism, especially if it turns out to be a conspiracy to implicate the judge by setting fire to the store room in his absence. A regular police investigation may have been better to ascertain the facts, such as the cause of the fire and whether anyone removed the burnt notes from the site. There was also a mysterious claim by a Fire Services official that no currency notes were found, but it was subsequently denied. Ever since the Court held that no first information report can be registered against a superior court judge without consulting the CJI, the police rarely initiate any inquiry into complaints against judges, and an internal mechanism became inevitable. While the judiciary does its work, the government should not be over-zealous in this matter, lest it be seen as the mastermind trying to trigger wider public demands for a robust accountability mechanism and a new appointment system for judges. If there is a lesson to be drawn from this murky episode, it is that the independence of the judiciary is not protected by insulation from regular investigative processes, but by making it fully accountable and transparent in its functioning.