Karnataka high court quashes plea seeking probe into court fracas

The Karnataka high court on Monday quashed a writ petition seeking investigations into the violent incidents in the court during a protest by advocates against chief justice PD Dinakaran on November 9 last.

A division bench headed by justice VG Sabahit dismissed the petition filed by KP Venkatesh and two other city-based advocates on the grounds that no complaint had been filed with the jurisdictional police and the representations sent by the petitioners to the president of India, the governor of Karnataka and the state law minister among others could not be construed as a complaint.

The petitioners on Monday submitted a representation to the high court seeking a directive to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe into the protests. The bench said that the question of ordering a CBI probe into the incidents also did not arise in the backdrop of the lack of a police complaint.

Referring to the petitioners’ prayer seeking enough security for judges of the high court and lower judiciary, the bench said that the judges themselves had raised no grievance over the issue of security and they appeared to be satisfied with the security provided to them.

The petitioners had contended that the chief justice could not discharge his duty fearlessly as he and his brother judges were not being provided enough security by the government. The state law minister himself had several times spoken lightly of the chief justice and his imminent transfer. The only way a chief justice could be removed was by impeachment by parliamentary majority in accordance with Section 124(5) of the Constitution of India.

Neither the president of India nor the Supreme Court collegium had the power to remove the chief justice, they argued. They also contended that the chief justice had been able to solve 3,000 cases in a short span of 106 judicial working days.