Justice Yashwant Varma of the Delhi High Court has vehemently condemned the claims made in the currency recovery case at his official home here, stating that neither he nor any of his family members ever put any cash in the storehouse.
The claims of cash being found at his home, according to Justice Varma’s letter to Delhi High Court Chief Justice D. K. Upadhyaya, “clearly appeared to be a conspiracy to frame and malign him.” Following an internal investigation led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court requested Justice Varma’s statement, which he subsequently submitted.
He added that before making accusations and disparaging him, the media ought to have done some research. According to Justice Varma, there was no cash or money in the outhouse storeroom that he knew of. “Neither I nor any of my family members had any knowledge of cash nor does it have any bearing or relation with me or my family. No such cash or currency was shown to my family members or staff who were present on that fateful night. I also strongly deny and outrightly reject the insinuation if made, that we removed currency from the storeroom. As stated above, we were neither shown nor handed over any sacks of burnt currency. In fact, and as stated above, the limited debris which was sought to be salvaged continues to exist in one part of the residence,” the judge said.
According to Justice Varma’s account of the event, over the intervening night of March 14–15, 2025, a fire started in the storage close to his official residence’s staff quarters. He stated that this room was typically used by everyone to keep items like old speakers, garden tools, beds, bottles, crockery, abandoned furniture, and CPWD materials.
“This room is unlocked and accessible both from the official front gate as well as the backdoor of the staff quarters. It is disconnected from the main residence and is surely not a room in my house as has been portrayed and suggested in the article which appeared in the Times of India and certain other news reports. On that date, my wife and I were not in Delhi and travelling in Madhya Pradesh and it was only my daughter and aged mother who were at home. I returned to Delhi only on the evening of March 15, 2025, from Bhopal travelling on an Indigo flight with my wife,” he said.
He revealed that his daughter and private secretary, whose conversations would be properly logged, notified the Fire Service when the fire started at midnight. “During the exercise to douse the fire, all staff and the members of my household were asked to move away from the scene of the incident in view of safety concerns. After the fire was doused and when they went back to the scene of the incident, they saw no cash or currency on site. 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,” Justice Varma said.
Suggestions that cash be kept in an outhouse or an open, publicly visible, and frequently used storeroom next to the staff quarters, he said, border on the unbelievable and unbelievable. “It is a room which is completely disassociated from my living areas and a boundary wall demarcates my living area from that outhouse. I only wish the media had conducted some enquiry before I came to be indicted and defamed in the press,” the judge said.
Following a fire at Justice Varma’s Lutyens’ Delhi home at approximately 11.35 p.m. on the evening of Holi on March 14, fire department personnel reportedly rushed to the scene and extinguished the fire, leading to the alleged discovery of a sizable cash hoard. The Supreme Court said in a statement on Friday that Justice Varma was the subject of an internal investigation by the chief justice of the Delhi High Court, and that a transfer of the judge to the Allahabad High Court was also being considered.
