Fresh Dinakaran plea rejected
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Sikkim high court Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran’s fresh petition challenging the impeachment inquiry committee’s order allowing a private organisation to participate in the probe proceedings while the Rajya Sabha chairman inducted a new member in the probe panel in place of advocate P.P. Rao.
A bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and C.K. Prasad rejected Justice Dinakaran’s petition against the order of the inquiry committee, headed by Justice Aftab Alam of the top court, allowing Forum for Judicial Accountability (FJA) to assist the panel in probing the corruption charges against him.
The committee had allowed FJA to assist its counsel Udai Lalit in the probe proceedings as the petition for the impeachment motion was initiated by FJA and the entire material against alleged corruption by Justice Dinakaran and amassing of huge assets in Tamil Nadu by him was also collected by the organisation. Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari inducted Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies’ director G. Mohan Gopal as a new member of the inquiry committee to replace Supreme Court advocate P.P. Rao, whose recusal was earlier allowed by the top court after Justice Dinakaran had levelled the charge of “bias” against him.
The other member of the panel is Karnataka high court’s Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar. The top court bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and C.K. Prasad after about 30 minutes hearing rejected Justice Dinakaran’s petition but told his counsel Amarendra Sharan that a detailed reasoned order would follow.
The bench was not impressed with Mr Sharan’s argument that the Judges Inquiry Act does not contemplate intervention of “third party” in the probe proceedings but the court did not make any oral observation during the entire proceedings.
The inquiry committee had allowed FJA’s counsel Prashant Bhushan and Ms R. Vaigai to assist its lawyer Lalit in carrying out the investigation against Justice Dinakaran into the 14 charges of corruption and misconduct framed by the panel against him.
The top court earlier on July 5 had rejected Justice Dinakaran’s plea against re-framing of the charges expanding them from 12 to 14 while allowing his plea for removal of Mr Rao on being accused by him of “bias” against him.
The top court in its July 5 order had made it clear that raking up of such issues by Justice Dinakaran “belatedly” was nothing but a “delaying tactic” as he raised them only after receiving the notice from the panel on March 16, accompanied with the chargesheet even though the committee had been functioning for past 10 months.
Post new comment