Dinakaran resigns to avoid impeachment
Sikkim high court chief justice P.D. Dinakaran, facing impeachment on charges of corruption and judicial misconduct, submitted his resignation to President Pratibha Patil on Friday, and also informed Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia about this.
In a letter to the President, Justice Dinakaran said he was “being targeted as he belongs to a lower caste, and the system does not grant him any support”. His resignation comes after several petitions by him challenging the impeachment proceedings were rejected by the Supreme Court. The resignation is expected to save Justice Dinakaran the ignominy of facing impeachment proceedings in Parliament. A Rajya Sabha-appointed panel was probing the charges of corruption and misconduct against him.
The allegations of corruption surfaced against Justice Dinakaran in August 2009 when a collegium, headed by then Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, recommended his elevation to the Supreme Court. After the allegations of corruption and land-grabbing surfaced, and several top jurists objected to his appointment as a Supreme Court judge, the government returned the collegium’s recommendation.
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