New Delhi: In a display of transparency unparalleled in the history of the Indian judiciary, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjeev Khanna has made public the initial set of reports which form the basis for the Supreme Court initiating an inquiry into allegations that an unspecified amount of unaccounted cash was seen at an outhouse/store room in the residential compound of a senior Delhi high court judge, Justice Yashwant Verma.
The reports submitted by the Chief Justice of the Delhi high court and the commissioner of police, Delhi, refer to the alleged presence of cash in the store room which caught fire on the night of March 14.
The documents uploaded on the Supreme Court’s website include a short video recording of a firefighter gathering together a mound of charred currency notes in the still smouldering store room, as well as Justice Verma’s categorical denial of any knowledge about the presence of cash on his premises.
CJI Khanna’s decision to place this official documentation in the public domain – with “some portions and names redacted … to maintain confidentiality” – is in stark contrast to the manner in which the Supreme Court had handled allegations against two of its sitting judges in the past few years. In the first of these, the Supreme Court was roundly criticised for its opaque handling of sexual harassment charges made against Ranjan Gogoi in 2019, who was the then CJI. Gogoi himself initially sought to sit in judgment of the charge against him before yielding to an internal committee which ended up dismissing the complainant’s allegations in a non-transparent manner. In the second instance, allegations levelled against Justice N.V. Ramana by former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2020 were disposed of through an internal ‘inquiry’ whose reasoning was never made public.
The documents uploaded by CJI Khanna on Sunday will go some distance towards reassuring ordinary citizens about the Supreme Court’s willingness to openly confront charges of alleged impropriety against the higher judiciary. They will also put a lid – for now at least – on the kind of reckless speculation that has been doing the rounds in the media over the past 48 hours. As the Committee for Judicial Accountability and Reforms has noted in a statement, “Transparency is key to ensuring public trust in the processes and integrity of the higher judiciary – an institution whose functioning has too often been marred by opacity and unwarranted secrecy.”
CJI Khanna has now tasked a three-judge committee with “conducting an inquiry into the allegations against Mr Justice Yashwant Verma” and the expectation is that they will go about their probe expeditiously.
To help readers understand the allegations and the questions that the committee is likely to ask, The Wire has analysed what is officially known so far – based on the material uploaded by the Supreme Court – and what is as yet unknown.
Who, what, where, when?
Justice Verma was appointed a judge of the Allahabad high court in October 2014. In October 2021, the Supreme Court collegium transferred him to the Delhi high court. Born in 1969, he is due to retire in 2031, unless he is elevated to the Supreme Court, in which case he will retire in 2034. He is currently the second senior-most judge in the high court after Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Vibhu Bakhru.
At approximately 11:30 pm on March 14, a fire broke out at the outhouse of Justice Verma’s official residence at 30, Tughlaq Crescent in New Delhi. A call was placed to Delhi’s PCR emergency services by Justice Verma’s personal secretary at 11:43 pm. Justice Verma himself was in Bhopal at the time.
The fire service responded promptly and doused the flames. According to media reports, police personnel from the Tughlaq Road Police Station also arrived at the spot and presumably remained there throughout, given that a fire had broken out at the residence of a VIP.
What happened next?
The Delhi police commissioner briefed Delhi high court Chief Justice Upadhyaya about the incident at 4:50 pm on March 15.
Chief Justice Upadhyaya then spoke to CJI Khanna on the phone the same evening and briefed him about what the police commissioner had told him.
At 9:10 pm that night, Chief Justice Upadhyaya’s registrar-cum-secretary visited Justice Verma’s residence and met with the judge, who had since returned to Delhi. The two of them together examined the charred interior of the outhouse.
On the evening of March 16, Delhi Chief Justice Upadhyaya, who had been out of town, returned and met CJI Khanna. And the next morning, i.e. March 17, Justice Upadhyaya met with Justice Verma and shared with him video and photographic evidence of burnt currency notes lying on the floor of the store/outhouse.
On March 20, Chief Justice Upadhyaya says he shared the video and photographs with CJI Khanna on March 20, “as required” by the latter.
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On March 21, Delhi Chief Justice Upadhyaya sent a formal report to CJI Khanna about the fire and the burnt cash, to which CJI Khanna responded with a request for some additional information. He also asked for Justice Verma to give his written response to “the facts recorded and found in the report” by March 22.
The same day – i.e. before Justice Verma’s written submission was received – the Supreme Court decided to transfer Justice Verma to Allahabad high court but hurried to add that this decision was independent of the in-house inquiry (into the cash allegation). Finally, on March 22, after receiving Justice Verma’s response, the court set up a formal inquiry committee and also made public redacted versions of this correspondence.
What did the Delhi police commissioner tell the Chief Justice Upadhyaya on March 15?
The contents of the telephone conversation Delhi Chief Justice Upadhyay had with police commissioner Sanjay Arora have unfortunately been redacted in their entirety. The only public reference to its contents is the former’s reference to having received “the said information” from the latter.
However, the documents uploaded include the WhatsApp message (or ‘report’) submitted by the police chief on May 15 which provides the basic details about the fire and then states:
“उक्तकमरेमें, आगकेकाबूमेंआनेकेबाद, 4-5 अधजलीबोरियांमिलीहैं, जिनकेअंदरभारतीयमुद्राभरेहोनेकेअवशेषमिलेहैं।
(After the fire was brought under control, 4-5 half-burnt sacks have been found, within which the remains of Indian currency notes have been found)”
[Arora’s use of the present tense – “have been found” – suggests the cash has now been secured. But we know that by then the cash had gone “missing”.]
The commissioner also shared a one-minute-and-seven-seconds long video clip in which a firefighter can be seen gathering the charred remains of several sacks of 500 rupee notes. The person filming says in Hindi, with a touch of irony, “Mahatma Gandhi is burning!” A third person can also be seen filming the scene with his mobile phone. It is impossible to estimate the value of the cash but judging by the volume, but it is clearly an enormous sum.
Who shot the video?
This is not known at present but it shouldn’t be difficult to identify the firefighter seen shovelling the notes. His testimony will likely establish the identities of the others present. Were they firefighters or were there also policemen present?
Was a formal inventory of the damage in the store room prepared by the fire department, including a description of the currency notes?
Filing a formal report of a fire incident is part of the standard operating procedure of the fire department.
Was an inventory of all identifiable objects made and countersigned by the judge’s staff at first point in time when the room/ debris was examined, with the date and time noted in the document? Even for insurance claims, this is a standard requirement.
This is what clause 45 of Delhi Fire Service Rules, 2010, says:
45. Issuing of Fire Report. (1) A fire report shall be made available on line within 72 hours of the date of occurrence through a link provided in the Delhi Fire Service web site for every fire accident and special service call responded to by the Fire Service for download by the owner or occupier whose property was affected by fire or affected by whatever way that required Fire Service intervention,:
Provided that any person may obtain such report from the Fire Service
Headquarters at Connaught Place, New Delhi on any working day from 1500 to 1700 hours from the Divisional Officer (Headquarters).
(2) The fire report shall be made available in the Form ‘S’ in First Schedule free of any charge.
(3) In case owner or occupier required any change in facts reported in the fire report he or she shall make an application in Form ‘T’ in First Schedule to the Chief Fire Officer (Headquarters) who may after satisfying himself allow the change requested for and record the same on the fire report.
Since the story itself broke out only well after 72 hours had elapsed, why did the fire department not upload any reference to the money if they had indeed rescued half burnt notes? And if they did indeed make such a recording, why was no reference to this entry made in any of the official reports?
Curiously, Delhi fire services (DFS) chief Atul Garg told PTI on March 22 that no cash was found. “Soon after dousing the flames, we informed police about the fire incident. Thereafter, a team of fire department personnel left the spot. Our fire fighters did not find any cash during their fire fighting operation,” the news agency quoted the DFS chief as saying.
Garg denied making this statement the very next day when asked about it by another news agency, IANS. But IANS also cited a fire department report that it had obtained according to which “the fire was limited to domestic and stationery articles in a storeroom.”
The Wire spoke to PTI editors who said they stand by their original story in which Garg had told them no cash was found. Why Garg said this when the video shows a firefighter sweeping together the burnt cash is not clear.
In his response, Justice Verma enters a caveat about whether “the video was taken immediately at the time of the incident at the site” but does not question the fact that the room where the video is shot is indeed the store room.
This means that the presence of the cash is not under dispute, even though its provenance/ownership undoubtedly is, with Justice Verma denying that the money is his. “I was totally shocked to see the contents of the video,” he wrote, “since that depicted something which was not found on site as I had seen it [on March 15]. It was this which prompted me to observe that this clearly appeared to be a conspiracy to frame and malign me.”
When did the Delhi Police learn about the cash and what did it do about it?
DFS chief Garg told PTI that the police were informed about the fire soon after the flames were doused. But we don’t know whether the police arrived there and took stock of the damage. Of course, given the VIP nature of the premises, it would be surprising for the police not to have arrived. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume Delhi police personnel at the scene were aware of the presence of a large amount of (obviously unaccounted) cash and would likely have escalated this information to the very top given the sensitivity of the location.
We know that the first intimation about the presence of cash was given by the police commissioner to the Chief Justice of the Delhi high court at 4:50 pm.
The police are normally expected to register a case upon seeing evidence of large sums of unaccounted cash but may have sought political guidance on how to proceed. The Delhi police chief reports to the Union home minister, Amit Shah. The permission of the Chief Justice is needed to register an FIR against a sitting judge but given the location of cash in an outhouse to which several individuals had access, a case against unknown individuals might have sufficed. Why was this not done, and, more importantly, why was the evidence not secured? Why is there no contemporary record of what details were possible of the currency notes? Perhaps the answer to these questions lies in the redacted portion of the Delhi Chief Justice’s report.
Where is the cash now?
Given that the cash recovered has since disappeared, the failure of the police to secure the partially burnt notes has become the subject of fevered speculation. The police chief himself has offered an explanation about the disappearance of the evidence. “I have also been informed”, the Delhi Chief Justice’s report notes, “that as per the Security Guard posted at the residence of the Hon’ble Judge, some debris and half burnt articles were removed in the morning of 15.3.2025.” This information was conveyed to him by the police commissioner on March 16:
“घर के सुरक्षा गार्ड के अनुसार, कल सुबह कमरे से मलबा और अन्य आंशिक रूप से जले हुए सामान को हटा दिया गया था.”
The police commissioner does not refer to cash, nor does the security guard, who is the source of the information that partially burnt items were removed on the morning after the fire. Neither the guard nor the police chief says who exactly removed these items.
In order to get to the bottom this mystery, the Delhi Chief Justice on March 21 put a point blank question to Justice Verma on behalf of CJI Khanna:
“Who is the person who had removed the burnt money/cash from the room in the morning of March 15, 2025?”
To which Justice Verma replied:
“I state unequivocally that no cash was ever placed in that storeroom either by me or any of my family members and strongly denounce the suggestion that the alleged cash belonged to us. 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…
Insofar as the allegation of the recovery of cash, I once again make it clear that no one from my house ever reported seeing any currency in burnt form in the room. In fact, this gets further corroborated from there being no cash or currency which we saw when the site was restored to us after the fire personnel and the police had left the scene quite apart from we being not apprised of any recovery or seizure which was made on the spot. This may also be viewed in light of the statement of the Chief of the Fire Service which I have gathered from news reports….
That takes me to the video clip which has been shared with me. Assuming without admitting that the video was taken immediately at the time of the incident at the site, none of it appears to have been recovered or seized. The second aspect which I need to underscore is that none of the staff was 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. The only thing which was cleared was debris and what they considered to be salvageable. That is still present in the house and can be seen kept apart in one part of the residence.
What baffles me is the complete absence of any sacks of allegedly burnt currency which were ever recovered or seized.”
Was the storage shed/outhouse indeed kept unlocked and accessible to anyone?
The material uploaded on the Supreme Court website contains contradictory information. The police commissioner’s report of March 16 says the store room used to be kept locked. But Justice Verma’s private secretary told the Delhi Chief Justice’s registrar-cum-secretary that “the room was being used as a store room to keep useless articles of the household and remained accessible to all as it was not kept locked” and this was noted in the latter’s report.
None of the reports mention how the firefighters entered the store room on the night of the fire. Was the door locked and if so, was it broken open? Or was it already open?
If the store room was usually kept open and several people had access to it, could the cash belong to someone else? If so, everyone who had access to the room would need to be questioned. And it is also fair to ask how someone have been so careless about the comings and goings at his own residence.
Justice Verma’s response to the charge stresses the apparent improbability of using an unguarded store room to hoard cash. “I request you to bear in mind that the storeroom is removed from my residence and is used as a general dump room for disused articles and other sundry household articles,” he wrote. “I wonder who would countenance an allegation that currency would be kept in a storeroom in a corner of the house and which is freely accessible from amongst others the back wicker gate.”
Who indeed, as Wodehouse’s Psmith might say:
“Baxter thought my sister’s necklace was in a flower-pot?” Lord Emsworth gasped.
“So I understood him to say,” said Psmith.
“But why should my sister keep her necklace in a flower-pot?”
“Ah, there you take me into deep waters.”
“The man’s mad,” cried Lord Emsworth, his last doubts removed.
Sadly, the ‘Case of the Disappearing Cash’ is no laughing matter for on its resolution lies the reputation of not just one judge – whom some are willing to damn while others claim him to be the victim of a ‘conspiracy’ – but the integrity of India’s judicial system. Many of its sins and failings are the product of political blandishments, interference and even outright coercion but at the end of the day it is the judiciary which must serve as the final constitutional check on the functioning of an over-weening executive.
The three-judge committee is destined for deep waters but if it asks the right questions it may emerge safely.
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