Leaders of six high court bar associations on Thursday met Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and sought withdrawal of the recommendation to transfer Delhi high court judge Yashwant Varma to the Allahabad high court.
Soon after the meeting, Allahabad High Court Bar Association president Anil Tiwari said the CJI had assured them of considering the demands.
However, the CJI did not promise anything, said sources privy to the development.
The representatives of six high court bar associations met the CJI and four collegium members, Justices B R Gavai, Surya Kant, Abhay S Oka and Vikram Nath.
They raised several demands, including setting in motion criminal action over the cash discovery from the judge's official home.
"The five members (of the collegium) listened to us very carefully and told us in a positive way 'each and every point raised by you in writing will be considered by us strictly within the premises of law. Don't worry at all'. This is a very big statement by five senior judges," Tiwari told media persons soon after the meeting.
He said the bar body would reconsider whether or not to continue with the indefinite strike.
"I do not know what decision will be taken," he said.
The CJI referred to the reasons behind collegium's recommendation to transfer Justice Varma to his parent high court at Allahabad, Tiwari added.
The CJI said in any case, Justice Varma, who was de-rostered by the Delhi High Court following a directive from him, wouldn't be discharging any judicial function at the Allahabad High Court as well, he said.
The bar body would discuss about the strike in its general body meeting for a "collective decision".
"All high courts in India are standing in support of the president of AHCBA and advocates of the Allahabad High Court Bar Association. They are really sacrificing their profession for the cause of the nation, for the cause of ensuring a transparent judiciary, the safe judiciary campaign, which we, we have all launched," another bar leader said.
He said the bar leaders have brought to the notice of the CJI the larger issue of corruption in the judiciary.
"One thing we pointed out to the chief justice and his collegium is our concern is not Justice Yashwant Verma per se, because he is just one of the symptoms. We are looking at the disease itself, and we have pointed out that when the courts or in the collegium is unable to pull out the bad apples. It affects the entire judiciary," said advocate Yeshwant Shenoy, president of the Kerala High Court Bar Association.
Shenoy said in the meeting the need to create a system through which the bad apples could be picked out upon identification was stressed upon.
Not only the CJI, but the entire collegium members understood the concern, and assured they also want a 'clean judiciary', he added.
Another bar leader joined in, "It is not that the judges alone can be corrupt, so it is a entire aspect the bar has put its support behind the judiciary, and things will definitely change from here onward."
The Allahabad High Court Bar Association has been on an indefinite strike from March 25 onward to protest the proposed repatriation of Justice Varma to his parent high court.
Earlier in the day, representatives of the bar associations of high courts of Allahabad, Gujarat, Kerala, Jabalpur, Karnataka and Lucknow submitted a memorandum to the CJI's office and sought an appointment to meet Justice Khanna.
While pointing out an alleged tampering of the evidence at Justice Varma's official residence where burnt wads of cash were purportedly discovered on March 14 during a fire incident, the members questioned non-registration of an FIR in the incident.
In a memorandum, the bar bodies appreciated the steps taken by the CJI to embrace transparency and to make public the report of the chief justice of the Delhi High Court and other materials on the apex court website.
"The bar associations request the chief justice and the collegium to withdraw transfer of Justice Yashwant Varma and to withdraw all administrative work in addition to the judicial work which is already withdrawn," the memorandum said.
The memorandum claimed as per the report of the chief justice of the Delhi high court, somebody had removed the articles from Justice Varma's residence a day after the fire incident.
"In these kinds of crimes, there would be involvement of others and non-registration (of an FIR) would adversely affect their prosecution," it said.
The alleged cash discovery happened following a fire at Justice Varma's Lutyens Delhi residence at around 11.35 pm on March 14, prompting the fire officers to rush to the spot.
In the wake of the controversy, the apex court collegium recommended the repatriation of Justice Varma, from whom work was withdrawn by the Delhi High Court following a directive from the CJI, to his parent Allahabad high court.
On March 22, the CJI constituted the three-member committee to conduct an in-house inquiry into allegations and decided to upload the inquiry report of Chief Justice D K Upadhyay of the Delhi High Court in the incident.
Justice Varma has denounced the allegations and said no cash was ever placed in the storeroom either by him or any of his family members.
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