Karnataka High Court chief justice PD Dinakaran, whose elevation as a judge of the Supreme Court has hit a road block, today preferred to maintain silence over allegations of land grabbing against him.
"Silence is my only strength," he told PTI when asked on the sidelines of a conference here. Justice Dinakaran refused to be drawn into any comment relating to the issue.
Asked about the charges against him and whether they were baseless, he refused to reply. "I will not say anything," he said. The Supreme Court collegium, headed by chief justice KG Balakrishnan, is understood to have put on hold the decision on Dinakaran's elevation. The move came amid allegations that the judge had amassed land in Tamil Nadu's Tiruvallur district.
The collegium's decision came after it considered a report of the District Collector of Tiruvallur which is believed to have pointed out that at Kaverirajapuram in Tiruttani taluk alone, the extent of land allegedly possessed by the judge was approximately 500 acres, court sources said.
Along with Dinakaran, the collegium had earlier cleared the names of chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court AK Patnaik, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court TS Thakur, Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court SS Nijjar and chief justice of the Gujarat High Court KS adhakrishnan for elevation to the apex court.
The collegium, also comprising Justices BN Agarwal, SS Kapadia and Altamas Kabir, had asked the district collector for his report on the allegations of land grabbing against Dinakaran.
Earlier, various representations were made by eminent lawyers, including those from Tamil Nadu, urging the CJI and the Government to probe the charges and not to elevate the judge.
