‘OWNED’ BY JUSTICE & FEAR INbharatiyas.in/cjarold/files/Mail Today Justice Dinakaran and...
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Page 23 Mail Today, New Delhi, Wednesday, September 23, 2009 Page 18 Mail Today, New Delhi, Wednesday, September 23, 2009 JUSTICE MADAN MOHAN PUNCHHI Post held: Former Chief Justice of India The Committee on Judicial Accountability alleged in 1998 that Justice Punchhi had committed irregularities as a judge of the Supreme Court of India. The representation was signed by 25 MPs of the Rajya Sabha. However, before it could get the signature of the requisite number of 50 Rajya Sabha MPs, Justice Punchhi was appointed Chief Justice of India JUSTICE A.S. ANAND Post held: Former Chief Justice of India Allegations of corruption and favouritism were raised against Justice A.S. Anand, the former Chief Justice of India, pertaining to the period when he was a judge and the Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. These allegations were supplemented reportedly with docu- mentary evidence. But the allegations against Justice Anand could never be proved JUSTICE VIJENDRA JAIN Post held: Judge at Delhi High Court Justice Vijender Jain had been accused of deciding a case of a litigant Hari Ram, who was the father-in-law of his close friend Justice Arun Kumar, a former Supreme Court judge. The Code of Conduct or “Restatement of Judicial Values says that no judge shall hear and decide a case of his relative or friend. It was later reported that Justice Jain did not personally know Hari Ram JUSTICE ASHOK KUMAR Post held: Additional Judge, Madras High Court He was formerly a session’s judge. Complaints of cor- ruption were levelled against him and the Intelli- gence Bureau conducted an inquiry into the matter. Not much is known as to what came of it. The Chief Justice of India promoted him as a high court judge in Febru- ary 2007. Justice Kumar is allegedly close to the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party JUSTICE JAGDISH BHALLA Post held: Judge, Allahabad High Court Allegations were made against Justice Jagdish Bhalla, then judge of the Allahabad High Court, of pur- chasing property worth crores for a few lakhs in the name of his wife from a land mafiosi in Noida. But the Supreme Court did not find merit in the charges and he was appointed acting chief justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court and Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court JUSTICE SAUMITRA SEN Post held: Judge, Calcutta High Court The Calcutta High Court judge 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) to do so. He faces impeachment in Parliament after the government accepted the CJI’s recommenda- tion that he be removed from the post JUSTICE Y.K. SABHARWAL Post held: Former Chief Justice of India He initiated the process of sealing of properties in des- ignated residential areas of Delhi which were being used for commercial purposes. Reports later surfaced of his two sons, Chetan and Nitin, entering into partnerships with big mall developers. The allegation against Justice Sabharwal was that of serious conflict of interest F or years, the two tiny lakes and adjoining pasture served as the common property resource for the poor village folks, mostly Dalits. Not only have most of the village folk become landless now, even the water bodies are of out of bounds for them thanks to a high court judge acquiring the land. With the lakes and contiguous pastoral lands fenced off, things have changed for the worse in the nondescript yet idyllic village of Kaverirajapu- ram, off the highway to Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu. The sons of the soil are in mor- tal fear and dare not open their mouth. The local administration, rather than protecting them, seems more interested in crush- ing their voice. On Tuesday, the police arrested nearly 300 pro- testers in Tiruvallur who were demanding removal of encroach- ments in their village. Well-connected by road, the landscape here cannot escape the attention of the neo-rich eager to pump in their newly acquired wealth. It is an hour- and-a-half’s drive from Chennai and has seen the mushrooming of farmhouses and recreation centres over the last few years. A few yards into the approach road to the village, one is greeted by fences, covering large tracts on the left with grown-up saplings of mangoes and other trees. Even the mud road has a name to boast of: it has been christened “Justice P.D. Dinakaran Salai” with a granite slab. “It was land I had grazed my cattle on since childhood. But now I can’t step in,” said Mani, an elderly Dalit, his voice almost choked. He was severely thrashed and a case “foisted” on him for inadvertently letting his cattle onto the land. Two others were also charged for stealing mangoes from the orchard. “People from Salem and other places are looking after the land. No local is involved in these activities. The case was slapped almost a decade ago and the trial is still on. It was a warning for the villagers 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 to the public domain Justice Dinakaran’s vast land holdings in By M.C. Rajan in Chennai BORN into a wealthy feudal fam- ily in Orathur village near Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu on May 9, 1950, P.D. Dinakaran went on to become a judge of the Madras High Court. Hailing from a Dalit family, he graduated in science from Chennai’s prestigious Madras Christian College after spending his school life in Arakkonam. After graduation, he opted for a post-graduate degree in polit- ical science and public adminis- tration before studying law at the Madras Law College. When Dinakaran enrolled as an advocate in 1976, he was a junior of Union home minister P. Chidambaram. He had a roaring practice at the Madras High Court. He was a legal adviser to many reli- gious institutions, including the Church of South India and the Tiruttani Lord Murugan Temple, among others. Besides labour law, he took up civil and crimi- nal matters and served as the additional central government standing counsel prior to his elevation as a permanent judge of the high court. However, some of his judg- ments have come in for criti- cism. One such judgment was the verdict in the famed Binny Mill case. Another charge against him is, he had used his judicial staff to supervise his lands and orchards. The lands he had allegedly acquired have come to light only now. He had purchased lands and reportedly annexed government public land in Kaverirajapuram. This has proved to be his Achilles heel. “Panchayat presidents, irre- spective of caste, toed his line. The former president, Narasimhan, also a Dalit, turned his supporter. The present pres- ident, a Naidu, too, is his man,” said V.M. Raman of Thalam, an NGO spearheading the agitation to retrieve encroached lands. A day after the Supreme Court collegium took up the matter of Dinakaran’s elevation to the apex court, G. Subbrayulu Naidu, ex-chairman of Thiru- valangadu Panchayat Union, addressed the media. He offered to take newsmen on a conducted tour of the village to show that everything was above board, since Kaverirajapuram falls under his panchayat. By M.C. Rajan in Chennai Dinakaran’s road to the apex court THE CONTROVERSY surrounding the ele- vation of Justice P.D. Dinakaran to the Supreme Court has revived demands for a change in the existing system of appointment of judges. But the govern- ment has been shying away from it. The Centre had last year rejected the Parliamentary Committee on Law and Justice’s recommendation for a change that would make the appointment process transparent. The Centre had said “public disclosure of 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 Minister were privileged and could not be dis- closed, it added. The committee had suggested that the names of persons being considered should 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 said many “less competent” people had been appointed as judges and sug- gested a change. The law panel, headed by a former Supreme Court judge, suggested that the government should have a role in the appointment process. Under the existing system, the opinion of a collegium of judges, headed by the Chief Justice of India, determines appointments. Recently, the Supreme Court Bar Asso- ciation (SCBA) and the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) raised a simi- lar demand. Legal experts also felt such controver- sies would keep resurfacing until the system was changed. Senior counsel Harish Salve suggested constitution of a national judicial com- mission to deal with appointments. Eminent lawyer Fali S. Nariman, told a news channel that judges were too busy to screen candidates. He sug- gested that the collegium should be institutionalised so that it could have staff to help judges. Mail Today Lift veil of secrecy over judicial appointments THE LONG-FORGOTTEN DUO JUSTICE K. Veeraswami and son-in- law Justice V. Ramaswami are two names that inevitably crop up when it comes to corruption and misuse of office in the higher echelons of the judiciary. While the former went on leave after a corruption case was registered against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the latter suf- fered the ignominy of being the first judge to face an impeachment motion in Parliament, though the motion failed to succeed. Justice Veeraswami joined the Madras Bar in 1941 and became a government pleader in 1959 and was appointed judge in 1960. He became the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court in 1969. The CBI filed an FIR against him on charges of corruption and amassing disproportionate assets running into lakhs in 1976. The case was registered under the Preven- tion of Corruption Act. Curiously enough, the trial is still going on. On the CBI filing the case, Justice Veeraswami proceeded on leave and challenged it before the Madras High Court, seeking to quash it. Dismiss- ing the plea, the court referred the matter to the Supreme Court for deciding certain questions of law. The apex court dismissed his petition and gave the go-ahead for the trial. His son-in-law, Justice V. Ramaswami, was charged with amassing wealth and misusing office for personal gain during his tenure as the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court between Novem- ber 1987 and October 1989. Having led an ostentatious life at the tax- payer’s expense, he was found guilty of 11 of the 14 charges levelled against him, some in part and some in full. The impeachment motion, signed by 108 MPs, was admitted by Lok Sabha Speaker Rabi Ray in 1991. As mandated by the Judges (Inquiry) Act, Ray constituted a committee comprising P.B. Sawant and O. Chin- nappa Reddy, among others. It was the first instance in the country’s his- tory of the Chief Justice of India rec- ommending the sacking of a judge through impeachment. Kapil Sibal appeared as the counsel for the disgraced judge and ridiculed the motion, questioning the removal of a judge for “purchase of a few pieces of carpets and suitcases”. When the motion was tabled in the House, Janata Party president Sub- ramanian Swamy canvassed support for the beleaguered judge and ensured the motion was defeated. Only 196 MPs voted for his ouster, less than the two-thirds majority needed. By M.C. Rajan in Chennai LOATHING & FEAR IN TN VILLAGE He (Justice Dinakaran) has no hereditary property here and had set foot in the village only some 18 years ago ‘ Justice K. Veeraswami Justice V. Ramaswami Call for greater government role in appointing judges He was Chidambaram’s junior in Madras court JUDGES CAUGHT IN CONTROVERSY the village. According to the Forum for Judicial Accountabil- ity and Reforms, the judge is in possession of approximately 440 acres in Kaverirajapuram alone, almost one-fourth of the village. He had been engaged in purchasing land from the vil- lagers prior to his appointment as a judge. Of the land held by the judge and his family, 313.33 acres is patta land. The rest is report- edly either government porom- boke or unaccounted land. “The land was fenced in the last three years. Outsiders were employed for the purpose,” said a villager who took part in the protest at Tiruvallur. “The people had unfettered access to the lakes and pasture earlier. The classification of the public lands has recently been changed and it is now in posses- sion of the judge and his family,” K. Balakrishnan of the All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the CPM, said. T HE land holdings are in the name of the judge, his wife Dr Vinodhini, daughters Amudha Porkodi (now married) and Amirtha Porkodi, and two oth- ers said to be relatives. “Ironically, I have been peti- tioning the government for the last nine years to allot me some land to house the office of my Trust. The judge alone had been granted around 13 acres here. His other family members, too, have been granted land,” Raman, a native of Kaverira- japuram, said. The fenced common property resource is contiguous with the land, including private patta land, in the possession of Justice Dinakaran and his family members. “Physical violence and police harassment are what keeps the locals in the grip of fear,” Thulasi Narayanan, Tiruvallur district president of TN Vivasayigal Sangam, said. The social profile of Kaverira- japuram consists mostly of land- less Dalits and Irulas, a tribal community. The village also has the presence of a few OBC fami- lies, such as the dominant Naidus and Boyars. “It is not only the judge who has encroached on public land. Even politicians and retired offi- cials have acquired vast tracts,” Balakrishnan alleged. Justice Dinakaran has his band of supporters, though. It is a motley crowd led by G. Sub- brayulu Naidu, former vice- chairman of Thiruvalangadu Panchayat Union. On christening the approach road after the judge, he said, “It was done by the villagers them- selves. A resolution was passed to this effect by the gram sabha on May 2, 2008. It was out of def- erence to the judge and much against his own wishes.” But Kaverirajapuram is not the native place of Justice Dinakaran. He hails from far-off Orathur, near Arakkonam. This has raised the hackles of many, especially after the com- mon property resource was fenced off. “He has no hereditary property here and has set foot in the vil- lage only some 18 years ago,” Raman said. ’ —V.M. Raman, Kaverirajapuram native TAMIL NADU ANDHRA PRADESH VELLORE TIRUVALLUR CHENNAI The Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam, affiliated to the CPM-led All-India Kisan Sabha, and the Forum for Judicial Accountability and Reforms 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 the name of the judge, his wife, daughters and two others About 440 acres at Tiruttani Talukk, (Tiruvallur district). Of this, 310.33 acres are patta lands, 41.27 acres are government poromboke (unaccounted) land, and 88.33 acres are government land that can be allotted only to landless poor 50 acres of orchards in Poovalai village (Vellore district) HIS ‘PROPERTY MAP’
Transcript of ‘OWNED’ BY JUSTICE & FEAR INbharatiyas.in/cjarold/files/Mail Today Justice Dinakaran and...
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’
