The Apex Court said Sikkim High Court Chief Justice Justice Diankaran’s knowledgeful silence with regard to P.P. Rao’s appointment in the Rajya Sabha Committe for a period of almost ten months militates against the bona fides of his objection to the appointment of P. P. Rao as member of the Committee.

A bench comprising of Justice G.S. Singhv and Chandramauli Kumar Prasad, however, allowed Justice Dinakaran’s plea seeking removal of senior advocate P.P. Rao from the inquiry panel and asked Rajya Sabha chairman and Vice-President Hamid Ansari to reconstitute the panel by replacing Mr. Rao with another distinguished jurist. The Court rejected the plea to quash some of the charges framed against P.D. Dinakaran by the Rajya Sabha panel enquiring allegations of corruption.

The court made it clear that Justice Dinakaran will be facing the same charges which were framed by the three-member committee comprising Supreme Court judge Justice Aftab Alam, Karnataka High Court Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and senior advocate P.P. Rao.

The Hindu reported as “The Supreme Court on Thursday hinted at referring to a Constitution Bench the Sikkim High Court Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran’s petition challenging the impeachment process adopted against him.”

The operative part of judgment is as follows:

“In conclusion, we hold that belated raising of objection against inclusion of respondent No.3 in the Committee under Section 3(2) appears to be a calculated move on the petitioner’s part. He is an intelligent person and knows that in terms of Rule 9(2)(c) of the Judges (Inquiry) Rules, 1969, the Presiding Officer of the Committee is required to forward the report to the Chairman within a period of three months from the date the charges framed under Section 3(3) of the Act were served upon him. Therefore, he wants to adopt every possible tactic to delay the submission of report which may in all probability compel the Committee to make a request to the Chairman to extend the time in terms of proviso to Rule 9(2) (c). This Court or, for that reason, no Court can render assistance to the petitioner in a petition filed with the sole object of delaying finalisation of the inquiry.

However, keeping in view our finding on the issue of bias, we would request the Chairman to nominate another distinguished jurist in place of respondent No.3. The proceedings initiated against the petitioner have progressed only to the stage of framing of charges and the Committee is yet to record its findings on the charges and submit report. Therefore, nomination of another jurist will not hamper the proceedings of the Committee and the reconstituted Committee shall be entitled to proceed on the charges already framed against the petitioner. In the result, the writ petition is dismissed with the aforesaid observations.”

Advocate Romy Chacko appeared for Justice Dinakaran and Advocate Kamini Jaiswal and Advocate A. Radhakrishnan appeared for the respondents. Prashant Bhushan appeared for the intervenors.

Bar & Bench has earlier reported that Justice Dinakaran was adopting delay tactics to rescue himself.

SC Order Lifting Stay on Impeachment Proceedings