Since the row over his elevation to the Supreme Court began, Justice P.D. Dinakaran of the Karnataka high court has maintained a studied, even strategic, silence.
While lawyers have shot off repeated memoranda, the media has feasted on his alleged excesses, parliamentarians have begun his impeachment process, and his brother-judges have shot off pointed barbs, we have heard nothing from the chief justice of the Karnataka HC.
On the face of it, this “dignified response” may reveal the helplessness high judicial functionaries face when they are exposed to relentless media and public scrutiny. OTOH, if Justice Dinakaran could opt for a super-soft interview with Dhanya Rajendran of Times Now to “clear the air”, surely it wouldn’t have been beyond him to launch a media blitzkrieg?
Vinay Sitapati in The Indian Express:
“Audi Alteram Partem,” goes the foremost rule of natural justice. Hear the other side out. Have we heard out Justice Paul Daniel Dinakaran?
“This is not to defend the Karnataka HC chief justice, to decry the mobilisation against him, nor to oppose his impeachment. It is to ask a question of procedure. For here’s what we know about Justice Dinakaran: (1) A district collector’s official report has found against him, (2) the law ministry has opposed his elevation, (3) 75 Rajya Sabha members have signed onto his impeachment notice, (4) the Supreme Court collegium has decided to keep his elevation “in abeyance”.
“In short, we know that a full four separate institutions have already judged him in some way. Yet, where is the space for the judge to defend himself, to present his own counter-arguments? The humblest of petitioners to appear before Justice Dinakaran probably enjoyed more legal due process. Is this fair entry to (or exit from) the world’s most powerful court?”
Read the full article: Hear him out
Full coverage: The strange case of Justice P.D. Dinakaran
CHURUMURI POLL: Is Dalit Dinakaran above the law?
If he is unfit for Supreme Court, how is he fit for Karnataka HC?
If he is unfit for Supreme Court, how is he fit for Karnataka HC—II?
‘Integrity + competence + judicial temperament’
Yella not OK, but Supreme Court silent yaake?
churumuri 
There is some intrinsic merit in the above line of argument adduced by you ! But one remembers not so long ago, our current Union of India HRD Minister burst in to national limelight by defending another tainted Judge ! Thus it is not that the CJI PDD will bow out- even if he is impeached – without adhering to the principle of Natural Justice. It is the law makers who will decide his fate ! If the fortunes of common man ( like deletion of Right to property from the fundamental rights of the citizen etc) can be decide by the laws made by these elected few, then you cannot shed tears on these exalted men in robes are put to trial and the our elected representatives acting as jury !
This apart, if brother J. DVSK can eloquently express his views thro’ blogs, this option was open to CJI too. If you read some of the allegations, all the members of CJI family are in the dock. There was no legal bar for them to initiate defamation cases against the people in the bandwagon.
In the end, those who swear (constitution) by the sword have to die by the sword (constitution). So be it !
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Audi alteram partem relates to opportunity to be heard. This is a free country. He has had more than enough opportunity to respond to any of these allegations.
The point is not the response to allegations or ultimate findings of guilt or otherwise. A judge’s behaviour should be beyond question. We should not even be worrying about giving him a hearing because that means the allegations against him have more than a grain of truth.
Yet, he chose to continue despite the widespread and detailed charges levelled at him. This was no disgruntled litigant levelling vague charges against a judge. When such specific charges are raised against him. he should have instantly stopped taking up judicial work and cleared his name presenting irrefutable proof of his innocence. By refusing to take the charges seriously and only presenting a bland “I didn’t do it” defence, Dinakaran has caused irreparable harm to the judiciary’s clean image.
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Only in India can such a shameless situation happen. Despite the corruption, high handed injustice and hundreds of acres of illegally grabbed land, it is indeed tragic to note that he still has 2-3 politicians supporting him in the disguise of caste!
Hai Ram!
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please do not do contempt of court. All our judges are good. Everything is fine and justice is being delivered continuously since 1947. We have the best courts in the whole universe and pandora combined
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“Dinakaran has caused irreparable harm to the judiciary’s clean image.
now thats an original! a clean image eh! reassuring indeed; very reassuring ;)
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WTF is ‘audit alteram partem’? I’m for sacking all judges and lawyers and lawmakers who use this kind of terminology
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Karihaida,
If you ban them from doing that, what else is left for them to do?
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Isn’t our governor the man responsible for Quattrochi getting a clean chit and millions of dollars besides? Wasn’t he our law minister?
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IF the Justice is impeached and found guilty, will he forfeit the allegedly illicitly acquired assets?
IF he is found guilty, I think he should be made to live among the very people whose land he is accused of grabbing.
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#My conscience is clear…# so also every ones…..nyaayadevathe is blinded…she is not blind…
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Karihaida:
>WTF is ‘audit alteram partem’?
Phrase isn’t about auditing anything… ;-)
Most of modern judicial system is borrowed from ancient European systems, and most of the words used in legal & medical lingo is from Greek/Latin or derived from Latin. “Audi Alteram Partem” is latin. Not very difficult to make out.. Audi (as in Auditary/audio or Hear), Alteram (as in Alternative or other) and Partem (Party)..
So “hear the other party”..
If we banned use of Latin/Greek words, then our whole judicial system will need to be banned as well.
:-(
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@Harkol
we don’t live in Medieval times right? This whole business of using Latin/Greek in our judicial system must be thrown out and made simple so that the so called ‘common man’ can understand it. If I remember correctly sometime back there was a move by some lawyers in this direction. But alas the leech &^%* lawyers do need to earn money and so we are stuck with this jargon garbage.
PS: A thumb rule in academic papers is, if there is too much greek or too much jargon, then it is a BS paper. A lot of people hate Papoulis as a probability textbook for similar reason.
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KH,
When we are at it, why not do away english in the judicial system and revert to the local langauges so that common man can understand even better.
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How did all these Karnataka Congress hegganas manage to become even cabinet post caricatures when there are so few of them in parliament?
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The Union law minister, Veerappa Moily, has recently announced that his next book is going to be about Draupadi. In this allegory Draupadi is the country and the Congress, the BJP, and all other parties are Dushyaasanas. I wonder who ghosts the man’s books.
The Union law minister, Veerappa Moily, has recently announced that his next book is going to be about Draupadi. In this allegory Draupadi is the country and the Congress, the BJP, and all other parties are Dushyaasanas. I wonder who ghosts the man’s books.
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Watch out. The Hindi bigots might get us to use even more unmanageable Sanskrit words.
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@kavitha,
I won’t go so far as to remove english(common english, not some Shakespearean &^*%), because it has become the defacto national urban language, but yeah please provide the laws in regional languages too. It might already be there for all I know.
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>judicial system must be thrown out and made simple so that the so called ‘common man’ can understand it.
I agree with you and I am sure it is as good abolishing jargons, just as much as an idea of abolishing all Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes (which have large amount of counterfeits floating). All I am saying is – it isn’t as easily done as said.
The reason why Jargon is difficult to replace is, a word comes to mean much more for the practitioners of a domain, than any equivalent word or phrase in spoken language.
Consider words like ‘alias’, ‘alibi’, ‘Et cetera’ (etc) or ‘de facto’… There are no equal English words and even simple phrases that can elegantly capture the same meaning.
‘Catch-22’ is one such English word, that has a meaning to a person who understands it, but means nothing to a person who doesn’t. To explain that word, may need a paragraph…
But, an effort to make jargon easy is always worthwhile.
I also had argued once that it is worthwhile for Hindu ritualistic Mantra’s to be recited in a language people can understand instead of *samskruta*, but apparently that is not easy to do either – for most people who recite them can’t capture the true meaning of it, and they don’t sound as nice…
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Karihaida: My dad (a lawyer) once told me that Lawyers do not write a document to be read by non-lawyers. He also told me it is perfectly possible to write legal documents in plain English, but the problem would be that the interpretation of certain phrases may lead to problems.
IAC, lawyer profession is one of the most wretched ones. You see Lawyers do not provide any specificity (and thus gurantee) on their work. If a Auditor screws up, he will certainly loose his license, because his screw up can be quantified. Most of the time that’s the case with Doctors too.
But, lawyers are a different breed! They only give ‘opinions’. They act on your behalf as an agent, and thus are not responsible for any oversight they may commit.
So Jargon or no Jargon, the client will still be screwed, because a text can (and will) be interpreted in many ways. That’s the very nature of Lawyerly profession.
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Alok:
>Dinakaran has caused irreparable harm to the judiciary’s clean image.
This is absolutely correct. Judiciary and Police have to be held to a higher standard of conduct as they are our gate keepers. Kannadadalli ‘Beliye Hola Maidante’ is a saying which applies in this case.
We can’t afford to have the regular juristic principles applied here. The same kind of error allowed that R@scal of a Policeman (Rathore the Ex-DG of Haryana) to continue in police and get promoted and head the State Police, and avoid justice for 19years, inspite of having committed a crime of monstrous proportions and denying justice to the victim.
By allowing people like these to continue in their influential positions, we let them misuse the very process that is supposed to protect us all.
There is something very rotten about our system. We need something similar to the ‘internal affairs’ in US police or “commissioner of professional responsibilities” or even a “empowered lokayukta”, who can expeditously investigates and prosecutes officials within Police and Judiciary. At most these cases should be resolved within a year, as these have to be highest priority.
I hope our neta’s don’t let Courts become another Parliament, where we already have 1/3rd members with criminal records.
Sad and depressing to note – Madhu Koda’s wife seems to be winning. Perhaps we deserve rascals like these to lord over us!
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Karihaida:
>I won’t go so far as to remove english(common english, not some Shakespearean &^*%), because it has become the defacto national urban language,
‘Defacto’ is latin. :-)
It has become part of english just as “Audi Alteram partem”…
Just thinking aloud… Where do we draw the line of what’s english and what’s not?
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HarkoL SwamigaLe–
The system is even closer to falling apart under its own weight than we anticipate. Anything we do is applying bandaid to hemorrages or triage to economic issues at best.
If there is one organ in the body that needs to be excised or replaced, it can be done, but if the whole organism is being bombarded by bacteria and cancer, it takes nothing short of divine intervention to save it. God hasn’t really thought of India in a while, and Jesus is just getting his game plan ready. Allah is too busy directing jihads in every area and sphere of life.
Whatever needs to be done, needs to be done now. But the bacteria and the cancer happen to be in charge. Did I hear just a few minutes ago that Renukaachaarya is going to be a minister in Yed’s cabinet?
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@harkol,
” My dad (a lawyer) once told me that Lawyers do not write a document to be read by non-lawyers. ” Exactly. But law should not be for lawyers. Come to think of it, if the law is simplified there is very little need for a lawyer right? They are there just like the bloated bureaucracy…
I agree that some usage of latin words has become so common that it is considered an english word (defacto for example :) ), but you have to draw a line somewhere right? The powers that be will always protect their system, but we citizens must find a way to break this up.
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