Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan and Union Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs M. Veerappa Moily on Saturday refused to be drawn into any discussion on the elevation of Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court P.D. Dinakaran.
The elevation of Justice Dinakaran has been mired in controversy following allegations of corruption and land grabbing by him.
Justice Balakrishnan and Mr. Moily participated in the one-day conference on alternative dispute resolution organised by the International Center for Alternate Dispute Resolution (ICADR).
Mr. Dinakaran was not present at the ICADR meet though he attended a function at the Raj Bhavan in the afternoon where an honorary doctorate was conferred on the Chief Justice of India.
At the ICDAR conference, both the Chief Justice of India and Mr. Moily refused to comment on the Dinakaran issue.
Impeachment move
When Justice Balakrishnan was asked about the impeachment move by 50 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Rajya Sabha against Justice Dinakaran, he smiled away the question, saying that he had nothing to do with it.
Asked if he had "assigned" any work to Justice Dinakaran even after the move, he refused to respond.
Members of the BJP, the Samajwadi Party and the Left Front have joined hands to move an impeachment motion against Justice Dinakaran.
Earlier, Mr. Moily too refused to comment on the matter. He made it clear that there is a "Lakshman rekha" which the government could not cross. Moreover, the elevation of judges and other issues could not be a matter of discussion in the public domain, he said.
He said one had to maintain discipline and exercise restraint while commenting on such sensitive matters.
Karnataka Governor H.R. Bhardwaj obliquely referred to the controversy by saying that other States should follow the lead of the Karnataka High Court in its use of IT and in filling up all posts of judges in the lower judiciary. However, other States should not take a leaf out of the Karnataka High Court when it was in the news for some controversies, he added.
