New Delhi: A group of Congress MPs has opposed Opposition lawmakers’ campaign to impeach Justice P D Dinakaran, the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, and suspect he is being targeted because he is a Dalit.
As many as 76 Rajya Sabha members of Opposition parties on Monday submitted a petition to Upper House Chairman Hamid Ansari to impeach Dinakaran, who is accused of land-grabbing and amassing wealth beyond his known sources of income.
Certain Congress MPs though suspect the mindset of these Opposition MPs is anti-Dalit and they don’t want Dinakaran to be promoted to the Supreme Court or have a chance to become the second Dalit Chief Justice of India after Justice K G Balakrishnan.
These Congress MPs now plan to mobilise Dalit MPs against the impeachment process. No Congress MP has supported the petition to impeach Dinakaran. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi earlier told CNN-IBN that the party had not given any direction to its MPs about the impeachment petition against Dinakran.
“The Congress has not taken any decision. It could support the resolution (petition), it could oppose it. Indeed it could give a third option: each MP could decide on his own without a party diktat,” he said.
But on Friday Congress MP Praveen Rashtrapal tried to raise the issue in the Rajya Sabha and claimed the impeachment petition against Dinakaran had a “caste bias”.
Balakrishnan on Friday confirmed Dinakaran's promotion to the Supreme Court has put on hold because of impeachment proceedings against him.
"We have kept Justice Dinakaran's name in abeyance in view of impeachment proceeding initiated against him in the Rajya Sabha," he said.
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