New Delhi:
A panel of top judges will meet on Friday to decide the fate of the Karnataka Chief Justice PD Dinakaran. The government has decided to wait for that decision.
Dinakaran was promoted to the Supreme Court last month, but then leading lawyers met the Chief Justice with allegations of corruption against him. Dinakaran was among five judges recommended for the Supreme Court by the Chief Justice of India.
Senior lawyers Fali Nariman and Shanti Bhushan, on the basis of a detailed letter of complaint from several lawyers based in Chennai, wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pratibha Patil, seeking intervention and calling for a probe into the allegations before promoting the Karnataka Chief Justice.
Now, sources say, the government has decided to wait for the collegium or the panel of judges, to decide whether or not to promote Dinakaran.
The written complaint was made to the Supreme Court collegium (the Chief Justice of India and four other judges) by the Forum of Judicial Accountability, a forum of some of the best-respected names in law. The complaint accused Justice Dinakaran of amassing huge assets, including 550 acres of land in Tamil Nadu. This violates the Tamil Nadu Land Ceiling Act, which allows a family of five to own a maximum of 15 acres of land.
Justice Dinakaran was summoned to Delhi by the Chief Justice of India where he denied these allegations.
Dinakaran has told a daily newspaper that he does not need to indulge in wrong doings as he comes from a rich agrarian family and the world knows that. "My legal career is an open book", he told the newspaper.
The file on Dinakaran's promotion is currently with the Union Law Ministry; it will go to the Prime Minister for his consent before reaching the President for her approval. But under the law, even if the government wants to stop Justice Dinakaran from becoming a Supreme Court Judge, it can't do much.
Only the collegium, the panel of senior judges, can decide whether a Judge should be kept out or any action can be taken against him.