Supreme Court on late Saturday night, in an unprecedented move, uploaded a 25-page inquiry report which included photographs and video as shared by the Delhi Police Commissioner with the Delhi High Court Chief Justice DK Upadhyay of the cash found during the March 14 fire that broke out at Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma’s residence.
The report gives a brief timeline of events, photos and video of the cash found following the fire and correspondence between CJI Sanjiv Khanna, CJ Upadhyay and Justice Varma. The photographs and the little over one-minute-long video show a dark and soot-blackened room where firemen appear to be sifting through wads of what seems to be piles of burnt money by the torchlight of their mobile phones.
“Mahatma Gandhi main aag lag gayi (money is on fire),” a fireman is heard saying.
Even as Justice Varma cried foul and refuted allegations of impropriety, the Supreme Court accepted CJ Upadhyay’s recommendation for a “deeper probe” and constituted a three-member committee comprising Chief Justices Sheel Nagu (Punjab and Haryana High Court) and GS Sandhawalia (Himachal Pradesh High Court) along with Karnataka High Court judge Anu Sivaraman to probe the incident.
“The Chief Justice of the High Court of Delhi for the time being has been asked not to assign any judicial work to Mr. Justice Yashwant Varma,” Supreme Court Registry said in the press release.
Read the press release shared below.
A transfer, withdrawal of judicial work: SC on Justice Varma
The recovery of unaccounted cash at the residence of a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court has created ripples and triggered a sequence of events starting with Justice Varma’s transfer to Allahabad High Court – his parent high court, and the constitution of a three-member committee to probe the incident.
The Supreme Court collegium further directed the withdrawal of judicial work from Justice Varma pending the in-house probe.
However, the Supreme Court Registry in a March 21 press release said there was “misinformation” with regards to the March 14 incident at Justice Varma’s house and clarified that his transfer was “independent and separate from the in-house enquiry procedure” initiated by Justice Upadhyay, Chief Justice of Delhi High Court.
The Collegium’s “proposal” to transfer Justice Varma, “who is the second senior most Judge in the Delhi High Court and a member of the Collegium,” to Allahabad HC where he will be “ninth in seniority, is independent and separate from the in-house enquiry procedure,” the press release said.
Incident warrants a “deeper probe”: Delhi HC CJ to CJI Sanjiv Khanna
The 25-page report reveals that the Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora informed Delhi High Court Chief Justice Upadhyay of the fire at Justice Varma’s residence on March 15, a day after the incident. According to the report, Chief Justice Upadhyay’s probe in the incident began when he visited Justice Varma’s bungalow the same day and inspected the room where the fire broke out.
Two letters penned by Chief Justice Upadhyay—one to the Chief Justice of India and another to Justice Yashwant Varma—are also part of the internal inquiry report that was made public late Saturday night.
In his letter to Justice Varma, Chief Justice Upadhyay asked the judge “to account” for the cash recovered at his residence during the fire.
In addition, Justice Varma was also asked to provide the following information:
(a) How do you account for the presence of money/cash in the room located in your bungalow;
(b) Explain the source of money/cash which was found in the said room; and
(c) Who is the person who had removed the burnt money/cash from the room in the morning of March 15, 2025?
In his letter to CJI Khanna, Chief Justice Upadhyay outlined the sequence of events; accepted the collegium proposal for the judge’s transfer in the “interest of better administration of justice” and said the entire incident warranted a “deeper probe” after his interaction with Justice Varma.
“The enquiry conducted by me, prima facie, does not reveal possibility of entry or access to the room by any person other than those residing in the bungalow, the servants, the gardeners and CPWD personnels, if any,” CJ Upadhyay told CJI Khanna.
Strongly denounce suggestion that cash belongs to me: Justice Varma
Justice Yashwant Varma strongly denounced the cash that was recovered from his official residence in a six-page reply to Chief Justice Upadhyay. The reply is part of the 25-page report that was uploaded on the Supreme Court’s website late Saturday night.
Justice Varma also expressed his surprise at the suggestion of arson since he was led to believe that the fire may have been a result of a short circuit.
“The very idea or suggestion that this cash was kept or stored by us is totally preposterous. The suggestion that one would store cash in an open, freely accessible and commonly used storeroom near the staff quarters or in an outhouse verges on the incredible and incredulous. It is a room which is completely disassociated from my living areas and a boundary wall demarcates my living area from that outhouse. I only wish that the media had conducted some enquiry before I came to be indicted and defamed in the press,” Justice Varma said.
Justice Varma further stressed that “no currency was either found nor was any cash in any state seen present on site” when he inspected the storeroom where the fire broke out along with his PS and PPS. Justice Varma said he saw photos and video of the burnt cash recovered from his residence for the first time on March 16. “I was totally shocked to see the contents of the video since that depicted something which was not found on site as I had seen it. It was this which prompted me to observe that this clearly appeared to be a conspiracy to frame and malign me,” the six-page reply read.
“What baffles me is the complete absence of any sacks of allegedly burnt currency which were ever recovered or seized. We categorically assert that neither my daughter, PS nor household staff were shown these so-called sacks of burnt currency,” he added. Justice Varma said none of his staff were shown any “remnants of cash or currency that may have been present on site”.
“I have made my own enquiries from the staff present who have also stated that there was no 'removal' of currency which was allegedly found at the site or removed from the premises,” he said. “This also stands corroborated from the report of [name redacted] which has been provided to me. Post that inspection and on your instructions, the gutted room remains in that state even today,” Justice Varma told the Delhi HC Chief Justice.
Justice Varma said this “also lends credence” to his “firm belief” that the entire incident “is part of a sequence of events which occurred in the recent past including the unfounded allegations that circulated on social media in December 2024.”
It is unclear what Justice Varma is referring to, but it could be the CBI case in which the judge has been named in the FIR against Simbhaoli Sugar Mills where Yashwant Varma’, was then a non-executive director of the company.
Justice Varma ended his letter saying this incident has scarred his reputation built over more than a decade as a judge and has left him with no means to defend himself. “In the life of a judge, nothing matters more than reputation and character. That has been severely tarnished and irreparably damaged. The baseless allegations that have been levelled against me have proceeded on mere innuendos and an unproven assumption that the cash allegedly seen and found belonged to me,” the judge said.