Overview
- The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition by advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay that sought registration of an FIR and a court‑monitored Special Investigation Team into allegations about cash found at Justice Yashwant Varma’s official residence.
- The petition was rejected after the bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe branded the filing a bid for "cheap publicity" and declined to entertain the request for a criminal probe.
- The controversy began when a fire at Varma’s Delhi official residence in March 2025 reportedly exposed partly burnt bundles of cash and prompted a three‑member in‑house inquiry that found his explanations unsatisfactory.
- Varma resigned on April 9, 2026 while parliamentary removal proceedings were under way, the petitioner says he filed complaints with Delhi Police, the CBI and the ED on June 2 but no public FIR has been registered, and the Lok Sabha committee report has not yet been formally tabled.
- The case highlights that in‑house judicial inquiries and Parliamentary removal steps are separate from ordinary criminal processes and that resignation can remove judicial protections, yet courts so far have rejected routes that would force agencies to open court‑supervised probes.