The Rajya Sabha Chairman Mr. Hamid Ansari has constituted a three-member panel headed by Supreme Court judge V S Sirpurkar to look into the issue of impeachment of Karnataka Chief Justice P D Dinakaran. His removal has been sought by 75 opposition members in the Rajya Sabha over land-grabbing allegations. <br/><br/>Justice A R Dave, Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court and noted jurist P P Rao are the other members of the Committee. A Rajya Sabha notification on Saturday announced the Committee more than a month after Mr. Ansari admitted a notice of the motion. AIR correspondent reports, under the Constitution, judges of Supreme Court and High Court can be removed only through impeachment in Parliament.<br/><br/>At a time when a three-member Committee is already going into the issue of impeachment of Calcutta High Court judge Soumitra Sen over alleged judicial misconduct, another has been constituted to look into justice Dinakaran's. An impeachment process against a Supreme Court judge Justice V Ramaswamy in the early nineties fell through when the motion was not carried in the Lok Sabha. The 55-page notice by 75 Rajya Sabha MPs, lists 12 acts of alleged misbehaviour by Justice Dinakaran, who has denied the allegations and claimed these were without any substance or without any basis.
News On AIR | January 16, 2010 9:16 PM
Justice Sirpurkar to head panel on impeachment of Dinakaran