Dhankhar warns of ‘Ides of March’ for judiciary after cash-at-home row

Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday said he hopes a criminal investigation will be launched into the large stash of cash found at a judge’s official residence in New Delhi, comparing the incident to the “Ides of March” — a reference to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and a symbol of looming misfortune.

He said now the point is 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.

Interacting with the students and faculty members at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, the Vice-President likened the cash discovered at the High Court judge’s residence to the “Ides of March”. He said the judiciary faced its own “Ides of March” on the night of March 14–15, when large amounts of cash were officially acknowledged to have been found, yet no FIR was filed.

Dhankhar stressed that the system should have treated it as a criminal matter from the start, but added that the Centre is currently constrained by a SC ruling from the early 1990s.

“But so far, there has been no FIR. The government at the central level is handicapped because an FIR cannot be registered in view of a judgment of the Supreme Court rendered in early 90s,” he said. He said the world looks at India as a mature democracy where there has to be rule of law, equality before law, which means every crime must be investigated.

India