Six high court bar associations met the Supreme Court Collegium on Thursday to protest the transfer of Justice Yashwant Varma from the Delhi to the Allahabad High Court, and present a list of four demands, including the start of a criminal investigation against the judge.

Anil Tiwari, the President of the Allahabad association, said the Collegium, led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, gave them a patient hearing, and said they would consider their demands.

He did not, however, say if the association – which earlier rejected the transfer, declaring their court is not a “trash bin” – will call off the general strike that they began Tuesday morning.

“We made four demands. First, the transfer should be cancelled. Second and third, judicial and administrative work should not be given (to Justice Varma, pending a complete inquiry). And fourth, a criminal investigation should begin immediately,” Mr Tiwari said.

The senior lawyer played down talk of being dissatisfied with the Collegium’s response, saying, “… if I were not satisfied, I would have made such a statement before the media. But I am satisfied. Whatever I wanted to communicate to the Chief Justice I have done that…”

“The Collegium listened carefully and said ‘each point raised will be considered… don’t worry at all’. This is a big statement by five senior judges,” he also told reporters after the meeting.

But on calling off the strike, he only said, “A strike is not the decision of one person.”

“Going on a strike is the decision of 35,000 lawyers who form the General Assembly (of the Association). This decision was taken by them. As President, it is my duty to communicate this latest development… and then they will take a decision,” Mr Tiwari told NDTV.

The Association, he said, understands its responsibilities – to the judiciary and the people.

“I am a positive man. My feeling is that since the Chief Justice has said he will take a decision, I say we should wait for that decision,” Mr Tiwari concluded.

Justice Yashwant Varma is the judge at whose home burnt bundles of cash were found – in an outhouse on the grounds of his bungalow – after a fire was put out on Holi.

Four to five bundles of burned cash were reportedly recovered.

He has distanced himself and his family from the money, and spoken of a “conspiracy” against him.

READ | “Preposterous…”: Justice Yashwant Varma On Cash Recovery Claims

His transfer was ordered last week and he has been removed from active judicial duty.

The Supreme Court – which has acknowledged the gravity of the issue and the impact on the people’s faith in the judiciary – earlier delinked Justice Varma’s transfer to Allahabad from the money,

It has, though, set up an in-house inquiry by a committee consisting of the chief justices of the Haryana and Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka High Courts. This was after a Delhi High Court report was made public – an unprecedented act – to ensure transparency in these proceedings.

That committee has already taken steps, which includes sealing the outhouse where the money was found and speaking to Delhi Fire Services chief Atul Garg, who was initially quoted by the media as saying no money was found. He later said he had never made such a statement.

The committee also inspected Justice Varma’s home in central Delhi.

READ | “Sorry…”: Court Nixes Urgent Hearing Plea In Delhi Judge Cash Case

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused an urgent hearing for a petition seeking directions to Delhi Police to take over the investigation into the burnt bundles of cash.

The petitioners also challenged the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court-appointed committee.

The Chief Justice-led bench said it would hear the plea but not on an urgent basis.

The recovery of the cash has also led to a political discussion, with the union government on Tuesday night reaching out to all political parties to hear their views and concerns.

READ | On Judge Cash-At-Home Row, Centre Calls All-Party Meet: Sources

This was after Rajya Sabha Chair Jagdeep Dhankhar’s met various party reps, including those from the Congress, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool, Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK, and the Shiv Sena faction led by ex-Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

With input from agencies

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Ranjini Srinivasan, the 37-year-old Indian PhD student in the US who self-deported to Canada after her student visa was revoked for allegedly being a “terror sympathizer”, opened up about her ordeal today. She even said that she feels ‘betrayed’ by her alma mater – the renowned Columbia University.

Ms Srinivasan has been accused of being a supporter and sympathizer of Hamas – a designated terrorist organisation in the Palestinian region of Gaza. She was pursuing her doctorate in public planning, and was on the verge of completing her PhD, when the Trump administration revoked her student visa for her alleged involvement in propagating and aligning with Hamas.

Her student visa was renewed in December – just a month before Trump’s inauguration to the White House. She is now pinning her hope on Columbia University to consider her appeal and reinstate her enrollment. But she feels equally betrayed by Columbia for the treatment met to her so far.

“I spent five years at Columbia University, working, I don’t know, maybe 100 hours a week sometimes. I never expected the institution to let me down. But it did,” she told Al Jazeera in an interview.

Ms Srinivasan was a Fulbright recipient at Columbia University.

“I hope Columbia comes to its senses and re-enrolls me,” she said, hoping for fairness and justice from an institution of global repute. She went on to say that she has made all her academic submission and completed all the university’s requirements needed to complete her PhD – hinting that it is now just a formality for the institution to award her her due.

“All the requirements for my PhD are complete, and whatever is left, I don’t even need to be in the US for it,” she said, adding that “So, I’m trying to appeal to Columbia” for them to do their bit.

THE ORDEAL AND THE ESCAPE

Speaking about her ordeal, Ms Srinivasan recalled how she got an email from the US Consulate in Chennai on March 5 which stated that her student visa had been revoked indefinitely. Within a matter of a few hours, while she was still trying to understand what had happened by contacting officials at Columbia and her PhD group, agents from the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up at her doorstep, possibly to detain her in order to deport her from the country. She didn’t answer the door.

The next evening, while she was not at home, the agents returned, asking for her. Her roommate had to deal with them. Hours later, another Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was detained on campus, which led to unrest between students and authorities.

Ms Srinivasan, now fearing arrest, managed to escape with a bag containing her documents, essentials, and a few items of value. Agents were on a constant lookout for her while she was on the run. On March 11, after evading officials, she somehow managed to fly out of New York on a flight to Canada, where she touched base with her relatives and friends who came to her rescue. CCTV footage from New York’s LaGuardia Airport showed her lugging a bag with her belongings. The footage was shared widely on social media.

Ms Srinivasan recalled how she feared being arrested in the US. Four days later, Kristi Noem, Secretary of US’ Department of Homeland Security labelled Ms Srinivasan a “terrorist sympathiser” in a post on X.

There has still not been a word on the incident by Columbia University. Their stand on the issue is not known. Even at the time of this report, there has been no official statement issued by Columbia University. Whether or not the institution will investigate the matter and deal with it fairly is not known. 

It is also not clear whether she was targeted only for her political views on Israel-Palestine issue, or if she was actually involved in any way for the charges made against her. It is also not known if, as a student of Columbia, she had entered into an agreement with the institution which forbids her from even speaking about her political views.

Though the US Government has labelled her a “terror sympathiser”, no evidence of her actively being involved has been shared publicly, nor the grounds for the charges been clarified. “I’m fearful that even the most low-level political speech or just doing what we all do – like shout into the abyss that is social media – can turn into this dystopian nightmare, where somebody is calling you a terrorist sympathizer and making you, literally, fear for your life and your safety,” Ms Srinivasan has said.

Ms Srinivasan, currently in Canada, now lives with uncertainty and hope.
 

The Madhya Pradesh government’s approach to renaming has now extended beyond roads and districts to unemployment. The state has decided that unemployed youth will now be referred to as “Aspirational Youth”.

This renaming, however, has sparked debate, with critics calling it an attempt to mask the ongoing job crisis.

Prakash Sen from Bhopal completed his BSc in Computer Science with dreams of working at a tech giant like Google or Facebook. Instead, he found himself running a tea stall. 

“I studied computer science, hoping to get a good IT job. But there is tough competition in the field, and after the lockdown, many people lost their jobs,” he said.

Similarly, Aryan Srivastava, who has a BSc degree in Agriculture, had hoped to contribute to India’s agricultural sector. He, however, found himself stuck in the job-seeking cycle. 

“There were no placements in my college. I thought my background in agriculture would provide me with opportunities, but there are fewer government vacancies. Even when there are openings, paper leaks ruin everything,” he says.

Many students and job seekers have been left frustrated by the lack of opportunities and frequent delays in recruitment. Shailendra Mishra has already spent Rs 30,000 on application fees, books, and other expenses while preparing for government exams. Sonali Patel has been waiting for police recruitment results since 2019, but the outcome remains uncertain.

The state government maintains that the job situation is not as dire as it seems. 

According to official records, in July 2023, Madhya Pradesh had 25.82 lakh unemployed individuals. By December, the number had gone up to 26.17 lakh. 

Now, instead of acknowledging an increase, the government has rebranded these individuals as “Aspirational Youth”, whose number extend to 29.36 lakh.

Between 2020 and 2024, 2,709 job fairs were organised, resulting in 3.22 lakh offer letters being issued. The government, though, has not disclosed how many candidates actually joined jobs.

Madhya Pradesh Skill Development Minister Gautam Tetwal defended the new term.

“The number of unemployed people registered in employment offices is different from the actual count. If a son works at his father’s shop and is registered in an employment office, he is not unemployed. A person earning less than Rs 12,646 per month without steady work can be considered unemployed, but that is not the situation in Madhya Pradesh,” he said. 

Congress MLA Pratap Grewal criticised the government’s approach, alleging that the renaming was an attempt to manipulate statistics. 
“The government previously reported 33 lakh unemployed people in July. Now, it avoids sharing actual figures, fearing backlash. Instead of solving the crisis, they are simply renaming it,” he said.