The three-member judicial panel headed by Supreme Court Judge V.S. Sirpurkar, which is going into the issue of impeachment of Karnataka chief justice P.D. Dinakaran, has undergone a change.
Justice J.S. Khehar, chief justice of the Uttarakhand high court has now replaced Justice A.R. Dave, chief justice of Andhra Pradesh high court as he has been elevated to the Supreme Court.
Noted jurist P.P. Rao is the third member of the committee, which has been constituted by Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari in January in the wake of 75 Opposition members in the Rajya Sabha seeking Justice Dinakaran’s removal over land-grabbing allegations. The committee constituted under the Judges (Inquiry) Act 1968 would “make an investigation into the grounds on which the removal of Dinakaran is prayed for.”
A Rajya Sabha notification announced the re-constitution of the committee.
Under the Constitution, judges of the Supreme Court and high courts can be removed only through impeachment in Parliament. —PTI