New Delhi: Karnataka High Court Chief Justice P D Dinakaran's promotion to the Supreme Court has put on hold because of impeachment proceedings against him in the Rajya Sabha over land grabbing allegations, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan said on Friday.
"We have kept Justice Dinakaran's name in abeyance in view of impeachment proceeding initiated against him in the Rajya Sabha," the CJI told reporters.
The CJI's response came when he was asked whether the Supreme Court Collegium has dropped Justice Dinakaran's name for elevation to the apex court.
The Collegium led by CJI including Justice S H Kapadia, Tarun Chatterjee, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran met last evening and decided to put its recommendation on hold.
Earlier, the Law Ministry had rejected the August 27 recommendation of the collegium and asked it to reconsider the decision.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari had on Friday admitted a notice of the motion by MPs to start impeachment proceedings against Dinakaran over land-grabbing allegations.
The Chairman is expected to constitute a three-member committee comprising a Supreme Court judge, a high court chief justice and a jurist to examine the notice and give its views before the impeachment process is carried forward.
Dinakaran, 59, who has kept away from judicial work, has ruled out his resignation and termed as "unfortunate" the impeachment motion against him.
Justice Dinakaran said that allegations of land grabbing against him were "baseless and incorrect".
On the impeachment motion he said: "it is an unfortunate situation. Unfortunate not from my point of view, unfortunate for not taking the entire reality and entire facts available on record into consideration."
Asked whether Justice Dinakaran will kept out of work, the CJI said, "I have no disciplinary power over the judges and Chief Justices of High Court".
On being whether the judge will be transferred out of Karnataka, Balakrishnan was non-committal but said, "I have power to transfer Chief Justices of High Courts".
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