The Delhi High Court has officially withdrawn all judicial duties of Justice Yashwant Varma following the cash haul controversy at his residence.
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00:00And it's a big development that we're reporting on at this point in time with Justice Verma
00:10formally getting derosted by the High Court.
00:13After India Today reported the judge on duty list, Justice Verma's judicial work has been
00:18withdrawn.
00:19High Court acts after CGI's no judicial work order has now been formally derosted.
00:26I'm going straight across to Nalini for more on that.
00:28There's clearly a big, big fallout of the cash haul controversy, Nalini.
00:33He's been formally derosted.
00:34What next?
00:35Yes, Neha.
00:36In fact, when his name was mentioned in the cause list for the matters to be listed for
00:40hearing today, we were given to understand that the cause list was made according to
00:44the roster that was decided on the 17th of March.
00:47And there was no update on the roster yet.
00:49But now the Delhi High Court has officially put out that all the judicial work has been
00:54withdrawn from Justice Yashwant Verma under the current circumstances.
00:58This is, of course, coming in after the order that had come in from the Chief Justice of
01:03India, Sanjeev Khanna, asking for the timing till the time the inquiry has still not formulated
01:08its report for all judicial work to be taken away from him.
01:12So he's not going to be hearing any matters today.
01:15He was supposed to sit in a division bench, which is a bench of two judges in the Delhi
01:18High Court today to hear matters that were even matters listed before his court.
01:22But none of those proceedings will happen now.
01:25And Justice Yashwant Verma will not be taking up any matters.
01:28Talking about the inquiry that has been set up by the Chief Justice of India, it is essentially
01:32going to be a fact-finding inquiry, basically to determine what is the chain of events and
01:37what really happened on the night of March 14th when the fire had happened in Justice
01:43Verma's residence and this cash was allegedly recovered.
01:46It remains to be seen what the inquiry panel comes up with.
01:49They're not going to be investigating anything beyond just the hard facts of exactly what
01:54the chain of events was.
01:56And for that, they're going to be asking people regarding the contradictory statements that
02:00have been made by the authorities.
02:02They're also going to be authenticating the video that has been put out by the first responders
02:07who were on this scene of the incident.
02:10And they're also going to look into as to what call records have been there regarding
02:16Justice Yashwant Verma, who received a call from him, who he called the night of March
02:2014th when all of this happened.
02:22So all of those facts in a report are then going to be presented before the Chief Justice
02:25of India.
02:26And it remains to be seen what happens once the Chief Justice of India receives that report.
02:31The reason why this is such big news, Sneha, is because remember, in the history of independent
02:35India, there has been not a single judge who has been officially impeached.
02:40There have been several proposals that have come out even into the media, even before
02:44the parliament.
02:45But the impeachment of a judge has not gone through.
02:47So the question on everybody's mind, especially from the legal fraternity today is, will Justice
02:51Yashwant Verma of the Premier High Court of Delhi be the first judge in the history of
02:55India to actually be impeached?
02:57And I'm going to thank you for the moment, Nalini, getting us up to speed with those
03:00details at this point in time.
03:02Now, the judge in question has been formally derostered, is what Nalini is telling us.
03:15All right, telling you more about the cash seizure at the High Court judges' residence.
03:20What is the three-member panel that has been set up?
03:23Will be probing.
03:24What are they going to do, essentially?
03:26They will be, in fact, talking to the first responders.
03:29Also, the events on the night of the recovery, something that they would be looking at.
03:35Verify location where the cash was burned.
03:39Authenticity of the video recorded, call upon staff, security deployed at the judges' residence
03:45is something that's going to be looked at very closely.
03:48On the contradictory statements as well, between the Delhi commissioner, police commissioner's
03:53remarks as well, will be studied.
03:55And also be looking at the access to the storeroom where the cash was stored, because remember
03:59the judge said everyone has access to it.
04:02Buyer services, chief's contrary statements on the cash that was retrieved.
04:08On the call records, in fact, the phone calls that were made by Justice Verma.
04:12His calls, remember, will be studied to determine what really happened on the night of 14th
04:17of March.
04:18Also, when the judge received information on fire at his residence, what did he exactly
04:22do then?
04:24What calls the judge made after receiving the information on the fire that had broken
04:29out at his residence?