‘Sorry, nevertheless,’ said Supreme Court’s Justice Chandrachud as he rejected CS Karnan’s bail plea

Source:-indiatoday.intoday.in

The Supreme Court today denied interim bail for controversial former judge CS Karnan.

Karnan, who retired in disgrace as a Calcutta High Court judge, was arrested in Coimbatore on Tuesday evening.

Karnan was sentenced to six months in jail by the Supreme Court, which ordered his arrest after finding him in contempt for defaming the judiciary.

A two-judge vacation bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul today said it cannot modify the original order as it was passed by a seven-judge bench and asked Karnan’s lawyer to bring the matter before the chief justice of India after the vacations.

“Sorry, nevertheless,” Justice Chandrachud said, declining the bail plea, according to news agency IANS.Â

THE JUSTICE KARNAN SAGA

Controversy has surrounded CS Karnan ever since his tenure at the Madras High Court, from where he was transferred to the Calcutta High Court in 2016, allegedly for his frequent run-ins with the then Madras chief justice and fellow judges at the high court.

He later went on to write letters to Prime Minster Narendra Modi and Law Minster Ravi Shankar Prasad, leveling serious charges of corruption and caste discrimination against sitting and retired Supreme Court judges.

It was over his letters and other statements (Karnan had once openly said, “I admit the Indian Judiciary is corrupt.”) that the Supreme Court issued a contempt notice, asking Karnan to appear before it.

On March 10, after Justice Karnan refused to appear before the Supreme Court, a seven-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar issued a bailable warrant in the contempt case against him.

Following the Supreme Court’s contempt order, Karnan passed his own order in April directing that the seven judges of the bench who issued the contempt order be barred from flying.

He did not stop there. On May 8, Karnan took on the country’s top judiciary, passing an order to ‘sentence’ CJI Kehar and seven other Supreme Court justice to five years of rigorous imprisonment. In his order, Karnan said, the judges had “jointly committed offences punishable under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 and the amended Act of 2015”.

On May 9, the Supreme Court responded by sentencing Karnan to six months in jail, making him the first judge to be sentenced to imprisonment by the apex court.

Since the Supreme Court ruling, Karnan had been untraceable, with the Kolkata Police launching a cross-country hunt for the then Calcutta High Court judge.

On June 12, Karnan retired from the Calcutta High Court, without getting the customary farewell. Even as he remained untraceable, Karnan communicated with the President of India through letters seeking that his sentence be suspended.

After being missing for over a month, Karnan was finally arrested by the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department in Coimbatore on Tuesday. Police said he resisted the arrest and argued with the cops before being taken into custody.