CJI unseats Dinakaran

Ktaka CJ will not conduct court proceedings until further orders

In what is being termed a victory for Karnataka and Tamil Nadu advocates’ bodies, who have led a relentless campaign to bring to light alleged instances of corruption and misdemeanour on the part of Justice Dinakaran, a notification on the high court website said: “The Chief Justice will not be sitting on the bench to take up judicial matters until further orders.”

The notification was issued by High Court Registrar Budhihal at the behest of Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan after the higher judiciary was faced with the impeachment motion moved by a section of Rajya Sabha parliamentarians two  days ago.

The high court notification goes on to state that “urgent matters and the date-given matters of Court Hall No 1 (Chief Justice’s court) will be heard by a division bench headed by Justice V Gopala Gowda until further orders”.

Justice Dinakaran, who is faced with allegations of amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income, has refused to stop judicial work despite a mailstrom of protests and agitation by sections of advocates here and in Tamil Nadu.

Dinakaran was among five senior judges whose names were empanelled for elevation to the Supreme Court. However, following a complaint by legal luminaries Fali S Nariman, Shanti Bhushan, his lawyer-son Prashant Bhushan and others, he was summoned by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan on September 16.

Subsequently, his name was dropped from the list of judges who were to be elevated. Justice Dinakaran is alleged to have acquired over 450 acres of land, under his own name as well as his wife and daughter and in the name of relatives, including his mother-in-law, at Kaverirajapuram and other places. The most recent instance of land acquisition was at Udagamandalam village and town in August 2009 in the name of his mother-in-law.

On September 17, the Advocates’ Association, Bangalore resolved that Justice Dinakaran should not sit through court proceedings until he was cleared of the charges and decided to symbolically boycott his court. However, the resolution to boycott was withdrawn after another resolution in the first week of October, but they stuck to their demand that Justice Dinakaran should not conduct hearings. A section of lawyers supported his decision to conduct judicial proceedings.

On November 16, some senior counsels refused to appear before the Chief Justice. But this did not deter him from conducting hearings until the Centre on December 4 decided not to elevate him to the SC.  This was followed by a demand by as many as 76 non-Congress Rajya Sabha MPs to impeach him. Since December 7, Justice Dinakaran stopped conducting hearings.