Justice Singh noted that the internal inquiry of the judiciary is being carried out by the Chief Justice of the Punjab & Haryana High Court Justice Sheel Nagu, Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court Justice G S Sandhawalia, and Justice Anu Sivaraman of the Karnataka High Court.”They are experts and handling the case very well by examining the crime scene and visiting the residence of Justice Varma. Truth will come out soon. We have to wait,” he added.Commenting on the SC Collegium’s recommendation transferring Justice Varma to the Allahabad HC, former Allahabad HC judge Justice Govind Mathur said the appointment of a judge to a High Court by way of transfer from one High Court to another was a rare phenomenon in our constitutional scheme, but nowadays they are made routinely.”As a matter of fact, I really failed to understand why Justice Yashwant Verma was transferred to the Delhi High Court in 2021. In the present scenario, when an in-house probe has already been commenced and no judicial work will now be assigned to the judge concerned, it is difficult to agree with proposed transfer,” he said.Justice Mathur further said he did not think this transfer was necessary or in any manner helpful for an effective in-house enquiry or in building public confidence in the judiciary that has been shaken as a consequence of this incident. “As per media reports, Allahabad lawyers are on the path of agitation against this recommendation. This too will certainly waste judicial working days of the Allahabad High Court, which is otherwise in bad shape due to a very low number of judges,” he said.”Our criminal law demands that on noticing a crime’s commission, Delhi police should have taken immediate action including securing the crime scene to prevent tampering with evidence or escape of suspects. Police should have seized the material found at the spot and initiated a formal investigation by registering a First Information Report (FIR). They should have ensured the scene was undisturbed until a thorough investigation. Police utterly failed to take any action in accordance with law. It is highly damaging that the entire scene of the crime has been disturbed. Till today, no case has been lodged. As such, there is no question of collection of further evidence,” Justice Mathur said.”Police, instead of waiting for instructions, should have acted as per law. More surprisingly, neither the Registrar General of the Supreme Court nor the Registrar General of the Delhi High Court, who were aware of the entire incident, instructed the police to take necessary steps as per the law,” he said.The purpose of the in-house inquiry by a committee constituted by the Supreme Court is to satisfy itself about the existence of adequate material to initiate impeachment, Justice Mathur said, adding that the committee has wide powers to adopt its own procedure to arrive at a definite conclusion.
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