Page 23Mail Today, New Delhi, Wednesday, September 23, 2009Page 18 Mail Today, New Delhi, Wednesday, September 23, 2009

JUSTICE MADAN MOHANPUNCHHIPost held: Former Chief Justice of India

The Committee on JudicialAccountability alleged in

1998 that Justice Punchhi hadcommitted irregularities as a

judge of the Supreme Court ofIndia. The representation was signed

by 25 MPs of the Rajya Sabha. However, before itcould get the signature of the requisite numberof 50 Rajya Sabha MPs, Justice Punchhi wasappointed Chief Justice of India

JUSTICE A.S. ANANDPost held: Former ChiefJustice of India

Allegations of corruptionand favouritism were raisedagainst Justice A.S. Anand, theformer Chief Justice of India,pertaining to the period when hewas a judge and the Chief Justice of the Jammuand Kashmir High Court. These allegationswere supplemented reportedly with docu-mentary evidence. But the allegations againstJustice Anand could never be proved

JUSTICE VIJENDRA JAINPost held: Judge at Delhi HighCourt

Justice Vijender Jain hadbeen accused of deciding acase of a litigant Hari Ram,

who was the father-in-law ofhis close friend Justice Arun

Kumar, a former Supreme Courtjudge. The Code of Conduct or

“Restatement of Judicial Values says that no judgeshall hear and decide a case of his relative orfriend. It was later reported that Justice Jain didnot personally know Hari Ram

JUSTICE ASHOK KUMARPost held: AdditionalJudge, Madras High Court

He was formerly a session’sjudge. Complaints of cor-ruption were levelledagainst him and the Intelli-gence Bureau conducted aninquiry into the matter. Not much is known asto what came of it. The Chief Justice of Indiapromoted him as a high court judge in Febru-ary 2007. Justice Kumar is allegedly close tothe ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party

JUSTICE JAGDISH BHALLAPost held: Judge, AllahabadHigh Court

Allegations were madeagainst Justice JagdishBhalla, then judge of the

Allahabad High Court, of pur-chasing property worth crores

for a few lakhs in the name of hiswife from a land mafiosi in Noida.

But the Supreme Court did not find merit in thecharges and he was appointed acting chief justiceof the Chhattisgarh High Court and Chief Justice ofthe Himachal Pradesh High Court

JUSTICE SAUMITRA SENPost held: Judge, CalcuttaHigh Court

The Calcutta High Courtjudge was accused of finan-cial misconduct, amounting

to Rs 32 lakh, and misrepre-sentation of facts prior to his

appointment as judge in 2003.He has refused to step down despite

being asked by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) todo so. He faces impeachment in Parliament afterthe government accepted the CJI’s recommenda-tion that he be removed from the post

JUSTICE Y.K. SABHARWALPost held: Former ChiefJustice of India

He initiated the process ofsealing of properties in des-ignated residential areas ofDelhi which were being used forcommercial purposes. Reports later surfacedof his two sons, Chetan and Nitin, enteringinto partnerships with big mall developers.The allegation against Justice Sabharwal wasthat of serious conflict of interest

For years, the two tiny lakes andadjoining pasture served as thecommon property resource forthe poor village folks, mostlyDalits. Not only have most of thevillage folk become landless now,

even the water bodies are of out ofbounds for them thanks to a high courtjudge acquiring the land.

With the lakes and contiguous pastoral landsfenced off, things have changed for the worse inthe nondescript yet idyllic village of Kaverirajapu-ram, off the highway to Arakkonam in TamilNadu.

The sons of the soil are in mor-tal fear and dare not open theirmouth. The local administration,rather than protecting them,seems more interested in crush-ing their voice. On Tuesday, thepolice arrested nearly 300 pro-testers in Tiruvallur who weredemanding removal of encroach-ments in their village.

Well-connected by road, thelandscape here cannot escapethe attention of the neo-richeager to pump in their newlyacquired wealth. It is an hour-and-a-half’s drive from Chennaiand has seen the mushroomingof farmhouses and recreationcentres over the last few years.

A few yards into the approachroad to the village, one is greetedby fences, covering large tracts onthe left with grown-up saplings ofmangoes and other trees. Eventhe mud road has a name toboast of: it has been christened“Justice P.D. Dinakaran Salai”with a granite slab.

“It was land I had grazed mycattle on since childhood. Butnow I can’t step in,” said Mani,an elderly Dalit, his voice almostchoked. He was severelythrashed and a case “foisted” onhim for inadvertently letting hiscattle onto the land. Two otherswere also charged for stealingmangoes from the orchard.

“People from Salem and otherplaces are looking after the land.No local is involved in theseactivities. The case was slappedalmost a decade ago and the trialis still on. It was a warning for thevillagers to behave properly,”V.M. Raman of the Thalam Trust,an NGO engaged in the advance-ment of rural children, said.

This incident had brought tothe public domain JusticeDinakaran’s vast land holdings in

By M.C. Rajan in Chennai

BORN into a wealthy feudal fam-ily in Orathur village nearArakkonam in Tamil Nadu onMay 9, 1950, P.D. Dinakaran wenton to become a judge of theMadras High Court.

Hailing from a Dalit family, hegraduated in science fromChennai’s prestigious MadrasChristian College after spendinghis school life in Arakkonam.

After graduation, he opted fora post-graduate degree in polit-ical science and public adminis-tration before studying law atthe Madras Law College.

When Dinakaran enrolled asan advocate in 1976, he was ajunior of Union home minister P.Chidambaram.

He had a roaring practice atthe Madras High Court. He wasa legal adviser to many reli-gious institutions, including theChurch of South India and theTiruttani Lord Murugan Temple,

among others. Besides labourlaw, he took up civil and crimi-nal matters and served as theadditional central governmentstanding counsel prior to hiselevation as a permanent judgeof the high court.

However, some of his judg-ments have come in for criti-

cism. One such judgment wasthe verdict in the famed BinnyMill case.

Another charge against him is,he had used his judicial staff tosupervise his lands andorchards.

The lands he had allegedlyacquired have come to lightonly now. He had purchased

lands and reportedly annexedgovernment public land inKaverirajapuram. This hasproved to be his Achilles heel.

“Panchayat presidents, irre-spective of caste, toed his line.The former president,Narasimhan, also a Dalit, turnedhis supporter. The present pres-ident, a Naidu, too, is his man,”said V.M. Raman of Thalam, anNGO spearheading the agitationto retrieve encroached lands.

A day after the Supreme Courtcollegium took up the matter ofDinakaran’s elevation to theapex court, G. SubbrayuluNaidu, ex-chairman of Thiru-valangadu Panchayat Union,addressed the media.

He offered to take newsmen ona conducted tour of the village toshow that everything was aboveboard, since Kaverirajapuramfalls under his panchayat.

By M.C. Rajan in Chennai

Dinakaran’s road to the apex courtTHE CONTROVERSY surrounding the ele-vation of Justice P.D. Dinakaran to theSupreme Court has revived demandsfor a change in the existing system ofappointment of judges. But the govern-ment has been shying away from it.

The Centre had last year rejected theParliamentary Committee on Law andJustice’s recommendation for a changethat would make the appointmentprocess transparent.

The Centre had said “public disclosureof names of candidates during the

appointment process may be an imped-iment in the dispassionate considera-tion of the names”. Records of deliber-ations among the Chief Justice of India,the law minister and the Prime Ministerwere privileged and could not be dis-closed, it added.

The committee had suggested that thenames of persons being consideredshould be made public.

Though the government rejected the

report, the committee’s view was sub-sequently reflected in a Law Commis-sion of India report. The law panel saidmany “less competent” people hadbeen appointed as judges and sug-gested a change.

The law panel, headed by a formerSupreme Court judge, suggested that thegovernment should have a role in theappointment process. Under the existingsystem, the opinion of a collegium ofjudges, headed by the Chief Justice ofIndia, determines appointments.

Recently, the Supreme Court Bar Asso-ciation (SCBA) and the Delhi High CourtBar Association (DHCBA) raised a simi-lar demand.

Legal experts also felt such controver-sies would keep resurfacing until thesystem was changed.

Senior counsel Harish Salve suggestedconstitution of a national judicial com-mission to deal with appointments.

Eminent lawyer Fali S. Nariman, told anews channel that judges were toobusy to screen candidates. He sug-gested that the collegium should beinstitutionalised so that it could havestaff to help judges.

Mail Today

Lift veil of secrecy overjudicial appointments

THE LONG-FORGOTTEN DUOJUSTICE K. Veeraswami and son-in-law Justice V. Ramaswami are twonames that inevitably crop up whenit comes to corruption and misuse ofoffice in the higher echelons of thejudiciary.

While the former went on leave aftera corruption case was registeredagainst him by the Central Bureau ofInvestigation (CBI), the latter suf-fered the ignominy of being the firstjudge to face an impeachment motionin Parliament, though the motionfailed to succeed.

Justice Veeraswami joined theMadras Bar in 1941 and became agovernment pleader in 1959 and wasappointed judge in 1960. He becamethe Chief Justice of the Madras HighCourt in 1969. The CBI filed an FIRagainst him on charges of corruptionand amassing disproportionateassets running into lakhs in 1976. Thecase was registered under the Preven-tion of Corruption Act. Curiouslyenough, the trial is still going on.

On the CBI filing the case, JusticeVeeraswami proceeded on leave andchallenged it before the Madras HighCourt, seeking to quash it. Dismiss-ing the plea, the court referred thematter to the Supreme Court fordeciding certain questions of law. Theapex court dismissed his petition andgave the go-ahead for the trial.

His son-in-law, Justice V.Ramaswami, was charged withamassing wealth and misusing officefor personal gain during his tenure asthe Chief Justice of the Punjab andHaryana High Court between Novem-ber 1987 and October 1989. Havingled an ostentatious life at the tax-payer’s expense, he was found guiltyof 11 of the 14 charges levelled againsthim, some in part and some in full.

The impeachment motion, signedby 108 MPs, was admitted by LokSabha Speaker Rabi Ray in 1991. Asmandated by the Judges (Inquiry)Act, Ray constituted a committeecomprising P.B. Sawant and O. Chin-nappa Reddy, among others. It wasthe first instance in the country’s his-tory of the Chief Justice of India rec-ommending the sacking of a judgethrough impeachment.

Kapil Sibal appeared as the counselfor the disgraced judge and ridiculedthe motion, questioning the removalof a judge for “purchase of a fewpieces of carpets and suitcases”.When the motion was tabled in theHouse, Janata Party president Sub-ramanian Swamy canvassed supportfor the beleaguered judge andensured the motion was defeated.Only 196 MPs voted for his ouster, lessthan the two-thirds majority needed.

By M.C. Rajan in Chennai

LOATHING& FEAR INTN VILLAGE

He (JusticeDinakaran) has nohereditary propertyhere and had setfoot in the villageonly some 18 yearsago

‘

Justice K. Veeraswami

Justice V. Ramaswami

Call for greater governmentrole in appointing judgesHe was Chidambaram’s

junior in Madras court

JUDGES CAUGHT INCONTROVERSY

the village. According to theForum for Judicial Accountabil-ity and Reforms, the judge is inpossession of approximately 440acres in Kaverirajapuram alone,almost one-fourth of the village.He had been engaged in purchasing land from the vil-lagers prior to his appointmentas a judge.

Of the land held by the judgeand his family, 313.33 acres ispatta land. The rest is report-edly either government porom-boke or unaccounted land.

“The land was fenced in thelast three years. Outsiders wereemployed for the purpose,” saida villager who took part in theprotest at Tiruvallur.

“The people had unfetteredaccess to the lakes and pastureearlier. The classification of thepublic lands has recently beenchanged and it is now in posses-sion of the judge and his family,”K. Balakrishnan of the All IndiaKisan Sabha, the farmers’ wingof the CPM, said.

T HE land holdingsare in the name ofthe judge, his wifeDr Vinodhini,daughters Amudha

Porkodi (now married) andAmirtha Porkodi, and two oth-ers said to be relatives.

“Ironically, I have been peti-tioning the government for thelast nine years to allot me someland to house the office of myTrust. The judge alone had beengranted around 13 acres here.His other family members, too,have been granted land,”Raman, a native of Kaverira-japuram, said.

The fenced common propertyresource is contiguous with theland, including private pattaland, in the possession of Justice Dinakaran and his familymembers.

“Physical violence and policeharassment are what keeps thelocals in the grip of fear,” ThulasiNarayanan, Tiruvallur districtpresident of TN VivasayigalSangam, said.

The social profile of Kaverira-japuram consists mostly of land-less Dalits and Irulas, a tribalcommunity. The village also hasthe presence of a few OBC fami-lies, such as the dominantNaidus and Boyars.

“It is not only the judge whohas encroached on public land.Even politicians and retired offi-cials have acquired vast tracts,”Balakrishnan alleged.

Justice Dinakaran has his bandof supporters, though. It is amotley crowd led by G. Sub-brayulu Naidu, former vice-chairman of ThiruvalangaduPanchayat Union.

On christening the approachroad after the judge, he said, “Itwas done by the villagers them-selves. A resolution was passedto this effect by the gram sabhaon May 2, 2008. It was out of def-erence to the judge and muchagainst his own wishes.”

But Kaverirajapuram is not thenative place of JusticeDinakaran. He hails from far-offOrathur, near Arakkonam.

This has raised the hackles ofmany, especially after the com-mon property resource wasfenced off.

“He has no hereditary propertyhere and has set foot in the vil-lage only some 18 years ago,”Raman said.

’ —V.M. Raman,Kaverirajapuram native

T A M I L N A D U

ANDHRA PRADESH

VELLORE

TIRUVALLUR

CHENNAI

The Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam, affiliatedto the CPM-led All-India Kisan Sabha, and the Forum for Judicial Accountability andReforms claim Justice P.D. Dinakaran owns the following property

PROPERTY LIST‘OWNED’ BY JUSTICE

DINAKARAN

� Commercial construction with 5 floors at Shenoy Nagar in Chennai� Commercial construction at posh Anna Nagar locality in Chennai� Anbagam, a residential building in Arakkonam in Vellore district

Land belonging to P.D. Dinakaran and his kin fenced off in Kaverirajapuram. He owns 440 acres here.

A Dinakaran-owned orchard in the area.

Villagers have named a 1-km road leading to Dinakaran’s land in Kaverirajapuram after him.

BUILDINGS

LANDHOLDINGS � 550 acres at Kaverirajapuram(Tiruvallur district), Anaipakkam,Mulvoy and Poovalai (Vellore dis-trict). The landholdings are in thename of the judge, his wife,daughters and two others � About 440 acres at TiruttaniTalukk, (Tiruvallur district). Of this,

310.33 acres are patta lands, 41.27 acres are governmentporomboke (unaccounted) land,and 88.33 acres are governmentland that can be allotted only to landless poor� 50 acres of orchards in Poovalaivillage (Vellore district)

HIS ‘PROPERTY MAP’