Dinakaran pleads innocence

Justice Dinakaran’s defence comes a day ahead of the Supreme Court collegium’s likely Monday meeting that will decide his fate in the higher judiciary. Dinakaran has also sought an appointment with law minister Veerappa Moily to clarify his stand on charges of land grabbing against him. Moily, however, refused to speak to Deccan Herald to clarify whether Dinakaran met him.

Speaking to reporters here on Sunday, Dinakaran said there was no truth in the allegations of land-grabbing as stated in the representations by various lawyers’ bodies and the report of the Tiruvallur district collector.

As Karnataka High Court Chief Justice, he was forced to observe self-restraint to “counter and expose” the people behind the campaign, which ultimately would not succeed, and that “truth will prevail”, he said.

Holding that it was not for him to prove his innocence, the 59-year-old judge said: “A day would come when people would realise that I am a person with clean hands and heart.”
He said his career as a judge for the past 13 years has been “clean and spotless” and that he had not added an inch of land to his existing holding that was with him since his days as a lawyer.

Dinakaran said he met Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and clarified his stand on the charges.