Dinakaran's name pulled out of SC list

he Supreme Court Collegium has pulled the name of Karnataka High Court Chief Justice P D Dinakaran from the five-strong list of HC chief justices it had recommended for elevation to the apex court. Last week's decision to take controversy-scarred Justice Dinakaran off the panel, has been conveyed to the Centre, clearing the way for filling four of seven existing vacancies in the Supreme Court. This was confirmed to TOI by the Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan. Those now set to join the Supreme Court Bench are: Justices A K Patnaik, T S Thakur, S S Nijjar and K S Radhakrishna, the Chief Justices of the High Courts of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, Calcutta and Gujarat. The decision on Justice Dinakaran was expected, given the furore over his alleged encroachment on public land. The decision is sure to be a blow to him as he had doggedly defended himself, contemptuously dismissing the Thiruvallur District Collector’s report, which upheld the encroachment charge. In September, the Collegium headed by the CJI had recommended Justice Dinakaran for elevation to the SC. Asked about his letter to the law ministry, the CJI said that “If anyone has done any thing that would amount to misconduct, we do not want him as a Judge of the Supreme Court.” The Collegium’s decision to put Justice Dinakaran’s name on hold till the inquiry is completed will help scotch the feeling that the apex court responded inadequately to serious allegations against a HC Chief Justice. The CJI enlarged his initial discreet inquiry when many charges were made against Justice Dinakaran but he bluntly denied the Collector’s report on land grabbing. “When a collector’s report is bluntly denied by a Chief Justice of a High Court, we have to resort to some independent inquiry,” the CJI told TOI. The CJI said: “We are in the process of finding the truth behind the allegations by an inquiry through independent channels keeping in mind the collector’s report and Justice Dinakaran’s version.” With the delinking of Justice Dinakaran’s name from the original list, the government would start meeting the requirements under the memorandum of procedure for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, which at present has seven vacancies considerably increasing the workload on judges. Justice Dinakaran had maintained that he had not acquired an inch of land since his appointment as a judge of HC and even called the collector’s report motivated. Asked about the damning report of the Tiruvallur collector’s report about alleged encroachment of 197 acres of land by him in Kaverirajapuran village, Justice Dinakaran had said that “the collector has got his facts wrong”.

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