New Delhi, June 18 -- Refusing to bow to pressure to resign or opt for voluntary retirement in the wake of a controversy over the discovery of cash at his Delhi residence earlier this year, Justice Yashwant Varma told the then Chief Justice of India (CJI), Sanjiv Khanna last month, that doing so would mean accepting a "fundamentally unjust" process that denied him even a personal hearing. In a strongly worded letter dated May 6 , copy of which has been seen by Hindustan Times, Justice Varma declined the then CJI's advice, issued in a May 4 communication, to step down or seek retirement, and instead flagged serious violations of procedural fairness. The CJI's letter was delivered to him just hours after he received the findings of a three-judge in-house panel that found him liable for misconduct, and in response, Justice Varma decried the compressed timeline of just 48 hours given to make a life-altering decision. "To accept such advice would imply my acquiescence to a process and outcome that I respectfully consider to be fundamentally unjust and requiring reconsideration and review," Justice Varma wrote in the letter addressed to Justice Khanna. "You will appreciate that I have served the institution for more than 11 years. A decision such as the one your letter advises me to take necessarily entails due deliberation and thought which cannot and ought not to be restricted to a 48-hour window," it added. The letter underscored that the denial of a personal hearing even after the in-house committee concluded its fact-finding inquiry was a clear departure from earlier precedents and the principles of natural justice. "I respectfully note that at no point during the inquiry was I informed of the Committee's preliminary or tentative views regarding the evidence it had gathered. Consequently, I was never afforded a meaningful opportunity to address the specific allegations or case ultimately tabled in the Report," the judge said. The controversy began on March 14 when a fire broke out at the outhouse of Justice Varma's official residence in Delhi. Firefighters reportedly found charred currency notes stuffed in sacks. The chief justice of the Delhi High Court flagged the matter to then CJI Khanna, who constituted a three-judge inquiry committee on March 22 comprising Justices Sheel Nagu (then Punjab & Haryana Chief Justice), GS Sandhawalia (then Himachal Pradesh Chief Justice), and Anu Sivaraman (Karnataka High Court). The panel submitted its report on May 3, concluding that Justice Varma was liable for misconduct....