Congress ‘Dalit’ MPs back Dinakaran as fellow-judge blasts him

Facing impeachment before Parliament, chief justice of the Karnataka High Court P D Dinakaran has received unexpected support from MPs belonging to the Congress, which leads the governing alliance at the centre.

Pushing the Dalit card, a section of MPs belonging to the Congress party – spearheaded by Praveen Rashtrapal and J D Seelam – have claimed that Dinakaran is being discriminated against on ''caste bias'' because he is a 'scheduled caste' person. The Congress MPs are planning to mobilise Dalit MPs from other parties to oppose the impeachment motion in Parliament.

The MPs have also sought an audience with party president Sonia Gandhi on the issue.

In another interesting development, Dinakaran's fellow high court judge D V Shylendra Kumar on Friday wrote a six-page media article urging Dinakaran to refrain from exercising administrative functions as chief justice, and requesting him to go on leave.

But Dinakaran himself has decided to keep off judicial functions till further notice.

Justice Shylendra has made something of a name for himself as an 'activist' judge. His article 'Judges and the Right to Information Act' is said to have played a role in Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and other judges declaring their assets.