Did the Supreme Court (SC) collegium headed by chief justice KG Balakrishnan recommend PD Dinakaran’s elevation to the apex court despite the land-grab charge against the Karnataka high court chief justice? Did the UPA government at the Centre reject the proposal last week at Sonia Gandhi’s behest? Has the lobby seeking impeachment of the controversial judge opened a direct channel with Sonia, since law minister M Veerappa Moily is not aware of any such move?
These and many more questions emerged when Prashant Bhushan, convener of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform (CJAR), which is trying to gather signatures of at least 100 MPs to move an impeachment motion against Dinakaran, thanked Sonia for her support.
Moily said on Wednesday that the government had no knowledge of any impeachment move against the judge.
CJAR and the Forum for Judicial Accountability (FJA) have sent detailed memoranda to Sonia and leaders of the BJP, CPI(M) and the JD(U) seeking support for the impeachment and a letter by Bhushan, who is facing contempt action by SC, thanks Sonia for ensuring that the government rejected the collegium’s choice.
“His continuance as chief justice of Karnataka is a shame. Apart from acts of corruption and acquisition of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, he has played a major role in helping the mining mafia of the Reddy brothers [of Bellary in Karnataka] to continue with rampant illegal mining,” Bhushan says.
“The charges against justice Dinakaran are many. They are very serious and supported by unimpeachable documentary evidence,” he says.
“We hope and trust that this time the impeachment issue will not be politicised and all parties will unite to remove this blot on judiciary. I, therefore, request you to get the motion signed by members of the Congress in Rajya Sabha,” Bhushan says, indirectly referring to the Congress’ support to former SC judge V Ramaswamy, who scraped through impeachment with the help of the party in 1991.
The motion against Dinakaran has been prepared by advocate R Vaigai of FJA under article 217 of the Constitution read with article 124 (4).
It says, “This House resolves that an address be presented to the president for the removal of Justice Paul Daniel Dinakaran, also known as Justice Paul Daniel Dinakaran Premkumar, from the office of chief justice of the Karnataka high court for his following acts of misbehaviour”, and lists many charges against the judge.
Dinakaran refutes all charges and says the collector’s report affirming them is rubbish.
In an interview last week, he said his delicate position as CJ had forced him to observe restraint to counter and expose people behind the campaign which would not succeed.
“It is not for me to prove my innocence. A day will come when people will realise that I am a person with clean hands and heart. I will come out of this with clean hands.”
Meanwhile, the SC collegium, which is likely to transfer Dinakaran to quell the lawyers’ upsurge against him, is awaiting the Survey of India’s report on the extent of land Dinakaran has “amassed in violation of certain laws in Tamil Nadu”.
