Dinakaran spat in Karnataka High Court reaches apex court

NEW DELHI - The spat between Karnataka High Court Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran and Justice D.V. Shailendra Kumar reached the Supreme Court Monday when the state high court filed a petition saying that a division bench headed by Justice Kumar was “berating the chief justice in the open court” and also “questioning his authority”.

The state high court sought the stay of four orders passed by the division bench questioning the administrative actions of Chief Justice Dinakaran.

The vacation bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Deepak Verma and comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan posted the matter for hearing on Tuesday after the high court petition was mentioned before it at 4 p.m. just when the court was adjourning for the day.

Chief Justice Dinakaran is in the thick of controversy relating to alleged land encroachment and an impeachment motion already moved against him in the Rajya Sabha. Because of the controversy surrounding him, Justice Dinakaran is not attending judicial work. However, he is attending to his administrative responsibilities.

The high court petition said the division bench was conducting itself in a manner that has “created an impasse and resulted in the denigration of the very institution of judiciary”.

The petition said it was a settled law as laid down by the apex court that “the chief justice is the master of roster and he alone will decide as to how benches of the high courts have to be constituted and the work distributed amongst the judges”.

It said the bench was exceeding its limit by calling for records “relating to the assignment of rosters, constitution of benches which is within the sole domain of the Hon’ble Chief Justice and with a view to further denigrate him by questioning his authority”.

That apart, the said division bench “has been berating the chief justice in the open court in intemperate language with a view to ensure that the same is printed in the news media”.

The petition said that the registrar general and other registrars of the high court were being summoned to the court and pulled up. In one instance, the chief justice posted a tax matter to be listed before the principal bench, but the division bench pulled up the registrar for not listing it when they were hearing matter at the Dharwad circuit bench, thereby challenging the decision of Chief Justice Dinakaran.

Earlier, the moment the Supreme Court started its proceedings in the morning, the matter was mentioned. However, the court said the petition suffered from defects and they needed to be cured.

Justice Verma pointed out that since from May 12, 2010, direct mentioning before the court has been stopped, the court asked the petitioner to move the registrar under the existing procedure only then they would hear it. By the time it reached the court it was 4 p.m. and the court said it would hear the matter on Tuesday.