Petition to impeach Justice Dinakaran

The move to file petition signed by 50 Upper House members across the party lines for impeachment of Justice P D Dinakaran, Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court, is a welcome move. When the Union Government and the senior most 5 judges of apex court tacitly dropped the move to appoint Dinakaran to Supreme Court, the MPs have felt their constitutional duty to remove Justice Dinakaran and it can only be possible by impeachment. There are several allegations of corruption against Justice Dinakaran. He is allegedly involved in land scam and several other malpractices. Even amidst the atmosphere of corruption around us, judiciary at top level was considered to be above any corruption . The Collegium of Supreme Court and the Union government have taken the right step by dropping the idea of promoting Justice Dinakaran into the apex court.A petition seeking to launch impeachment proceeding needs to be signed, under the law, by at least 50 MPs of the Rajya Sabha or 100 MPs of the Lok Sabha. After securing the required signatures, the petition is to be submitted to the Rajya Sabha chairman or the Lok Sabha speaker, as the case may be.Once the Rajya Sabha chairman gets the signed petition, he/she is required to constitute a committee of three people - a sitting Supreme Court judge, a high court chief justice and a jurist - to inquire into the charges and submit their report to the house.If they find the judge guilty and recommend his removal, the matter is sent for voting to parliament where it has to be approved by a two-thirds majority of each house (present and voting) and an absolute majority of the total membership of each house.In the infamous failed impeachment motion in 1993 initiated for removal of Justice V. Ramaswami, a three-member committee of Justice P. Sawant, Justice D. Desai and jurist Chinappa Reddy conducted the probe and indicted the judge for corruption. However, when the matter was put to vote in the Lok Sabha, the Congress party abstained.Thus, the impeachment motion failed because it did not have the support of the house majority. Though at the lower level of judiciary in the District Courts justice is allegedly on sale, it is necessary for the Union Government to act against the tainted justices through proper channels. That is why the MPs of the Upper House have initiated the right step. It is the responsibility of the judiciary at the top level to act strigently against all cases of corruption to restore the confidence of the people in it. As corruption is rampant at all levels of government departments, it is only judiciary to which the people move for redressal of their grievances. The question arises here that when it would itself indulge in corruption, how can it redress the people’s grievances in the country. The move in Rajya Sabha to impeach Justice Dinakaran must be supported by the members of the Lok Sabha to get him removed. It is the constitutional duty of all MPs to help judiciary at the top level to keep its house clean. If Justice Dinakaran is impeached, it would send a message that there is some constitutional body in the country to act against even the tainted judges at the top level. As Chief Justice is himself very concerned about the prevailing corruption in lower courts of the country about which he has aired his disgust on several occasions, it would be in the benefit of the people if he constituted a competent body comprising judges known for his honesty and integrity to look after the day to day functioning in lower courts.All political parties must co-operate with each other to get Justice Dinakaran removed through impeachment. And apart from removing Dinakaran, a provision must be made by the Parliament to make the functioning of the judiciary transparent and occular judgement should be scrutinised.