Dr Mohan Gopal replaces PP Rao Dinakaran will still face same charges

Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s order Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice-President Hamid Ansari has reconstituted the Rajya Sabha Panel by replacing Senior Advocate P.P. Rao with another jurist, Dr. Mohan Gopal.  The other members of the committee, Supreme Court Judge Aftab Alam as chairman and Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court J. S. Khehar will continue in the committee.

Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s order Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice-President Hamid Ansari has reconstituted the Rajya Sabha Panel by replacing Senior Advocate P.P. Rao with another jurist, Dr. Mohan Gopal.  The other members of the committee, Supreme Court Judge Aftab Alam as chairman and Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court J. S. Khehar will continue in the committee.

Though the Supreme Court has asked the Rajya Sabha Chairman to replace P.P. Rao with another jurist, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the replacement will not affect the proceedings of the committee and Justice Dinakran will have to face the same charges framed by the committee consisting of P.P. Rao.

The Hindu reports the notification said: “In partial modification of the notification dated September 27, 2010 under sub-section (2) of Section 3 of the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, the Chairman, Rajya Sabha, has re-constituted, for the purpose of making an investigation into the grounds on which the removal of Justice Paul Daniel Dinakaran Premkumar, the then Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court and now Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court, is prayed for, a committee consisting of the following three members".

Dr. G. Mohan Gopal is a former Director of the National Judicial Academy. Dr. Gopal holds a masters and a doctorate degree in law from Harvard Law School, USA and a bachelor's degree in law from Delhi University.  Dr. Gopal was also the Director of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Dr. Gopal taught law at Georgetown University Law School, Washington, DC for nine years. Dr. Gopal served for over 18 years at the World Bank in Washington, DC where he became Chief Counsel in the Legal Department of the World Bank. Dr. Gopal has also taught law for three years at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Gopal is currently Director at Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi.

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