Sikkim high court Chief Justice P.D. . Dinakaran, against whom the impeachment proceedings has reached at a crucial phase with the three-member judicial committee set to examine the chargesheet, on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the proceedings followed by the panel.
Justice Dinakiaran, who was transferred to Sikkim from Karnataka after Rajya Sabha chairman and vice-president Hamid Ansari had admitted the impeachment petition against him, questioned the functioning of the panel, headed by Justice Aftab Alam of the Supreme Court.
The other members of the committee include Karnataka high court Chief Justice K.S. Khehar and senior advocate P.P. Rao and it only last week had rejected the plea of the judge for removal of Mr Rao, whom he had accused of “bias” against him.
According to the sources, the committee had taken a serious view of Justice Dinakaran raking up such issues when it was all set to commence the arguments on each of the 16 charges mentioned in the chargesheet served on him and was waiting for his reply.
Instead of filing a pointed reply responding to each of the charge, Justice Dinakaran, in his petition has sought to question the entire proceedings followed by the panel, accusing it of “exceeding its jurisdiction” and not providing him sufficient opportunity to defend himself.
In his petition, Justice Dinakaran has raked up the issue of Mr Rao’s presence again, claiming that the senior lawyer’s “bias” against him was proved form the fact that he was the part of a lawyers’ delegation that had called upon the then Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan in 2009 opposing his elevation to the apex court. Justice Dinakaran’s elevation to the Supreme Court was stalled due to strong protests by lawyers from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on the face of serious allegation of corruption against him, which ultimately led to filing of impeachment petition by them with the Rajya Sabha chairman.
Justice Dinakaran claimed that the Rajya Sabha Secretariat had not supplied him with all the relevant documents.