Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar raised several questions on Monday about the functioning of the higher judiciary in recent times, raking up the issue of cash found at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma, the practice of having Chief Justice of India on the panel to choose the CBI Director and the post-retirement jobs given to judges.Addressing students of National University of Advanced Legal Studies at Kochi, Dhankhar the country had seen “turbulent times in the judiciary” in recent times but a big change has taken place since the present chief justice of India and his predecessor took office, ensuring the start of a “new era of accountability and transparency”. He said the previous two years were “very disturbing and challenging”.

Referring to the recovery of a huge cache of cash found at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma, the Vice President said like the Julius Caesar incident of Ides of March, the Indian judiciary had its own experience on the night of March 14-15.

“…. A terrible time! Cash in large amounts was found at the official residence of a judge of the High Court. Now, if that cash was found, the system should have moved immediately and the first process would have been to deal with it as a criminal act, find out those who are culpable and bring them to justice. But so far, there has been no FIR,” Dhankhar said.

He underlined that the government is “handicapped” in the matter as an FIR cannot be registered in view of a judgment of the Supreme Court in early 1990s. While the fire incident happened on March 15, the recovery of cash was reported only on March 21, he added.

“The world looks at us as a mature democracy where there has to be rule of law, equality before law, which means every crime must be investigated. If the money is so huge in volume, we have to find out: is it tainted money? What is the source of this money? How was it stacked in the official residence of a judge? Who did it belong to?” Dhankhar said.He insisted that since several penal provisions have been violated, the FIR should be registered, and the authorities should go to the root of the matter.“Our judiciary -in which people's faith is unshakable- its very foundations have been shaken. The citadel is tottering because of this incident,” he said.

Parliament is likely to move an impeachment motion against Justice Varma in the forthcoming monsoon session and both the government and the Opposition are on board on the matter.

The Vice President also raised eyebrows over the rule of having the Chief Justice of India on the panel that chooses the CBI Director.

“I am aghast that a functionary of the executive like the CBI director is appointed with the participation of the Chief Justice of India. Why? Just think... The CBI Director is not the senior most in the hierarchy. He has above him several layers like CVC, Cabinet Secretary, all secretaries. After all, he is heading a department. Is this happening elsewhere in the world? Can it happen under our constitutional scheme? Why should an appointment of the executive be made by anyone else other than the executive?” he said.

The Vice President also emphasized that judges should not be given post-retirement jobs.

“Certain constitutional authorities are not permitted to hold an assignment after their office. This was not specified for judges, because judges were expected to be totally away from it. Now we have post-retirement posts for judges. Further, not all can be accommodated- only some can be accommodated. So, when you can't accommodate all but you accommodate some, there is pick-and-choose. When there is pick-and-choose, there is patronage. It is seriously impairing our judiciary,” Dhankhar said.