The alleged recovery of cash from the residence of a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court was raised in the Rajya Sabha on Friday. Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar assured the House that he would find a mechanism for holding a structured discussion on the issue.

Raising the matter, Congress member Jairam Ramesh sought the Chair’s response on judicial accountability and reminded him about a pending notice regarding the impeachment of a judge of the Allahabad High Court.

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He said, ”This morning, we read about a shocking case of huge amounts of cash unearthed at the residence of a judge of the Delhi High Court”.

He also pointed out that earlier, 50 members of Parliament had submitted a notice to the chairman regarding certain remarks that were made by a judge of the Allahabad High Court.

“You yourself has repeatedly spoken about the urgency for judicial accountability,” Ramesh said.

He requested that the Chair make some observations on this and give necessary directions to the government to come up with a proposal for increasing judicial accountability.

Vice President Dhankhar said, “I had the opportunity to seriously consider that whatever is included in the Indian Constitution must first emanate from our Constitution makers and then whatever change is made must be ratified by Parliament and in some cases by the Legislatures of 50 per cent of the States.”

Ultimately, it gets constitutional sanction after it is signed by the President under Article 111, he added.

”Therefore, I requested the Leader of the House that it is necessary for the House to know that the Constitution which is in force today is implemented as per this directive. All of you would recall that if the mechanism, which was passed by this House almost unanimously—there was no dissent in the Rajya Sabha except for one absent member—all the political parties were united in this initiative of the Government.

“I would like to know what is the current status of that historic bill (of judicial accountability) that was passed by the Indian Parliament, ratified by the legislatures of 16 states and signed by the Hon’ble President under Article 111.”

He further said,” That historic law, which was supported by this Parliament with unprecedented unanimity—unheard of in the parliamentary history of this country—took this problem very seriously. If that problem had been addressed earlier, perhaps we would not have had to face these kinds of issues. I am concerned that this incident happened and did not come to light immediately.”

Mr Dhankhar said,” If it happens to a politician, he is immediately targeted, whereas in the case of a bureaucrat or an industrialist, there is an immediate response. Therefore, a systemic response is necessary that is transparent, accountable and effective. I am sure steps will be taken in this direction.”

He said that with the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the House being the heads of their parties they would reach a good decision.

Fortunately, he said, ” Our House is uniquely equipped to deal with this—the Leader of the House is also the president of the ruling political party also, and the Leader of the Opposition is also the president of the main Opposition party. With these two distinguished persons present, I am sure their advice and that of other members will be useful. I will discuss it. We will have to have a structured discussion, which has not happened so far.”