Team of Senior Advocates to Help Justice Varma as He Prepares to Appear Before Inquiry Committee. Who Are They?

New Delhi: In a significant development in the burning cash case, Delhi High Court Judge Yashwant Varma has reached out to senior lawyers for legal advice ahead of his deposition before the in-house inquiry committee constituted by the Supreme Court to investigate the case, as per reports.

The team of lawyers advising Justice Varma includes Senior Advocates Siddharth Agarwal, Arundhati Katju, and advocates Tara Narula, Stuti Gujral, among others.

The inquiry committee, composed of Justice Sheel Nagu, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice GS Sandhawalia, Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, and Justice Anu Sivaraman of the Karnataka High Court, was constituted by the Supreme Court of India to investigated the alleged recovery of wads of cash from Delhi HC Judge Varma's residence after a fire broke out on March 14.

Also read | ‘Faith Shattered’: Furious Allahabad HC Lawyers Demand Reintroduction Of NJAC, Seeks Impeachment Of Justice

As Varma prepares his statements for the inquiry, take a look at the Senior Advocates who are helping him:

Siddharth Agarwal:

Siddharth Agarwal is a Senior Associate in the Law Links Delhi office. He has been practicing before the Supreme Court, Delhi High Court, subordinate courts and Tribunals in Delhi. His domain of practice, apart from civil litigation, extends to the specific fields of Company Law, Employment Law, Insolvency Law, Public Interest Litigation, Mediation, Property Law and Service Law. He has a degree in BBA and LLB. Siddharth enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Delhi in 2017.

Arundhati Katju:

Born in 1982, Arundhati Katju is a Senior Advocate qualified to practice in India and New York. She has litigated many notable cases at the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court, including the Section 377 case. Her law practice encompasses white-collar defence, general civil litigation, and public interest cases. In 2018, Katju, in an interview with CNN, revealed that she was in a relationship with lawyer Menaka Guruswamy, with whom she convinced the Supreme Court to decriminalise Section 377. She has been awarded several prestigious awards and honours, including the Time 100, Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Also read | Debate With Arnab: How Is In-house Inquiry Enough In Justice Varma Case? | Judge Cash Scandal

Tara Narula:

Tara Narula is a litigator running a chamber practice under the name "Narula and Associates" in New Delhi. As per her Linkedin, she obtained an LLB Degree from the University of Warwick in 2012 and an LLM from the University of Toronto in 2015. As an independent practitioner, her work focuses on defence litigation, civil rights as well as broad-based criminal defence, including white collar crimes.  She has represented a number of prominent clients and companies such as the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, NDPS offences and UAPA.

Burning Cash Video: Phones of Cops Under Scanner for Evidence Tampering

Mobile phones of at least eight officials were seized as part of an inquiry into the cash recovery case involving Justice Varma. Their phones have been sent for forensic tests to determine if any videos captured at the location were deleted or tampered with. This development follows a statement from a constable who was prevented from entering the room where a significant amount of cash was later discovered.

The phones in question belong to Umesh Malik, the SHO of Tughlaq Road Police Station, Havildar Roopchand, the Investigating Officer, Sub-Inspector Rajneesh, two mobile bike patrol officers, and three PCR staff members. Their statements have been documented, and officials are investigating whether any evidence was tampered with or removed.