"Judges Tied Themselves In Knots": Harish Salve On Cash Row Judge Case

Former Solicitor General of India Harish Salve has said that while judges have "tied themselves up in knots" over the case of Justice Yashwant Verma, from whose premises bundles of unaccounted cash has been recovered, the "elephant in the room" was how such a situation came to pass and now that it has, what happens to the criminal justice system in the country. Yet another concern, he said, was for the judges not to create an impression of bias. 

NDTV has accessed the report of a three-member panel of senior judges, which has recommended the removal of the former Delhi High Court judge, at whose residence "piles of burnt Rs 500 notes" was found in March.

"If this had been the house of a minister where this incident had taken place, would it have been enough to say that the minister must now resign and go away? By now, the media would have been screaming, why is the minister not in jail?" Mr Salve told NDTV in an exclusive interview this evening. 

"If a public servant has been found with such large amounts of unaccounted cash, what happens to the criminal justice system of the country? That's one question which looms large," he added. 

For this, the system is to blame, he indicated, questioning why the law of the land is not taking its course which it would have done in any other case.

"Why are we even discussing this on TV? Why is there a question of what will happen now? Would there be a doubt if it was any other citizen? And you know, this is the real problem of this case. We have tied ourselves in knots. The judges, I'm sorry to say, have tied themselves in knots," he said. 

Impeachment of a judge is a very complicated procedure - so much so that since Independence, not a single judge has been impeached, though five judges have resigned when questions were raised about them.

Mr Salve said such a system was devised out of the good intention to protect the independence of judges. "But what about protecting the integrity of the system? It is now established that this whole collegium system,  it doesn't act with alacrity," he said, describing it as "dysfunctional". 

Asked if there should be a criminal proceeding based on the report of the three-judge panel, Mr Salve said, "What is the delay in now allowing the CBI to register a case and investigate it like any other act of corruption? And that has to be the basis for the impeachment. And it is well settled that civil and criminal proceedings can run side by side".

Quoting the oft-repeated maxim that "Howsoever high you may be, the law is above you," Mr Salve questioned, "What are we waiting for? I mean, unfortunately, impeachment is the only process we have".