The Karnataka high court, which faces a piquant situation arising out of an order passed by its division bench that virtually amounts to inquiring into the functioning of the Chief Justice on the administrative side, moved the Supreme Court on Monday for a stay on the order.
Stung by “adverse” media publicity on certain comments made by a division bench comprising Justices D.V. Shylendra Kumar and N. Anand, the high court administration wanted an immediate stay on their order. But repeated attempts by the counsel for the HC to get the case taken up for hearing by a vacation bench of the apex court failed as certain “defects” were found in the petition.
The vacation bench of Justices Deepak Verma and K.S. Radhakrishnan, approached thrice by the HC’s counsel, expressed its inability to take up the matter unless the defects were removed.
The controversy assumes a significant dimension as the HC’s division bench had made certain “oral comments” against Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran, who, incidentally, is facing an impeachment motion and had kept himself away from judicial duty, looking after only administrative work.
The controversy arose from four tax-related cases earlier listed before the bench of Justices Kumar and Anand, which also was assigned the work of “circuit bench” at Dharwad. When the bench was sitting at Dharwad, CJ Dinakaran on April 6 ordered listing of these cases before the bench on its return to Bengaluru on April 9. But in between the HC closed for the summer vacation and the cases were ultimately listed on June 4 before Justices Kumar and Anand. According to the petition, the bench “took exception” to why the cases were not listed before it on April 8 at Dharwad itself and sough an explanation from the registrar-general and registrar (judicial).
During the June 9 hearing, the R-G and registrar (judicial) were not only required to file an explanation but asked to appear before the bench the next day, and on the resumed hearing on June 10 the “comments” were made by the judges against the CJ. The comments were reported by various newspapers. The HC administration also reproduced certain headlines of newspapers to show how the “comments” of the bench had “berated the Chief Justice in the open court in the presence of newspaper reporters”.
Referring particularly to Justice Kumar, the petition said “he also berated the registrars of the court for nearly an hour and a half and made a scathing attack on the Chief Justice in most intemperate language”.