The Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition seeking an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation or a Special Investigation Team into the recovery of unaccounted cash at the residence of former Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma. The controversy led to his transfer and subsequent resignation.
On Monday, Justice Amit Bansal of the Delhi High Court dismissed a petition seeking an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the recovery of unaccounted cash at the residence of former Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma. The controversy arose in March 2025 when emergency services responded to a fire at Varma’s official residence in Delhi, where he served as a judge at the Delhi High Court at that time. According to reports by Live Law and Bar and Bench, Justice Bansal stated the petition was a 'wild witch hunt'.
Varma, who later transferred to the Allahabad High Court, claimed that he was in Bhopal when the cash was discovered and that it did not belong to him or his family. The controversy led to his resignation in April 2025, more than two months after Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju announced the process to impeach the judge. In August 2025, an inquiry committee formed by the Lok Sabha found all charges against Varma proved and noted that unexplained bundles of Rs 500 were recovered from his Delhi home and that he had given misleading explanations about it.
The petitioner, Ghanshyam Dayalu Upadhyay, moved the High Court seeking an investigation into the source, ownership, custody, and disappearance of the cash. He argued that the fact that the cash was neither secured nor preserved should also be investigated. The petition filed by him in the Supreme Court was dismissed on August 7, with the court stating it was filed for ‘cheap publicity’.
In its report tabled in Parliament, the three-member committee formed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla stated that Varma had failed to provide a satisfactory explanation about the 'presence, source or ownership' of the cash. The committee further noted that the explanations given by Varma were ‘evasive and unsatisfactory when tested against the evidence of independent official witnesses’.
While Birla had stated in the House that the panel would submit its report at the earliest, the investigation was delayed since Varma challenged the legality of the inquiry committee in the Supreme Court. In January 2026, the Supreme Court rejected his petition.
Source:
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