Revision as of 10:19, 15 July 2017

Brief biography

Dhananjay Mahapatra, Ex-judges: Karnan a loner with no qualms targeting Dalit colleagues, Mar 18 2017: The Times of India

Chinnaswamy Swaminathan Karnan, who is giving a migraine to the top judicial brains, was appointed as a judge of the Madras high court in March 2009.

TOI spoke to a host of former judges who were members of the SC collegium, headed by the then CJI K G Balakrishnan, at the time, but none had any recollection of Karnan's traits.

“It was eight long years ago. As collegium members, we must have selected over 100 people for appointment as judges,“ said one of the judges.“We mostly go by the recommendations of the HC collegium comprising the chief justice and the two most senior judges. Before approving the recommendation, we do take the opinion of SC judges who were associated with the HC to which the appointment is recommended,“ the judge added, an opinion echoed by others.

TOI also spoke to two former SC judges who were associated in the past with the Madras HC, and whose opinion was sought by the SC collegium. They too said memory failed them on Karnan. But the then members of the SC collegium recalled that the Madras HC collegium -which at the time comprised the then chief justice A K Ganguly and justice P K Misra and justice S J Mukhopadhaya -had sent the proposal for Karnan's appointment as a judge.

However, the selection of Karnan, who now throws up his Dalit background to attack the judges by accusing them of victimising him, by the HC collegium came as no surprise for many who started their career from the Madras HC and ended up as CJIs or SC judges.“There is an unwritten convention in the Madras HC collegium to give opportunities to advocates from the Dalit category to become judges despite the fact that there is no reservation in such appointments,“ said a judge.

The SC judges and CJIs, who were made aware of Justice Karnan's activities and mindset after he started throwing tantrums every now and then, told TOI that he suffered from a persecution complex. “He always felt that he was being targeted because of his Dalit background and attacked his colleague judges for this. At the same time, he did not spare other judges who belonged to the Dalit community,“ said another judge.

Justice Karnan was described as a loner who didn't interact much with his colleagues. The judges TOI spoke to were unanimous that it is very difficult to rein in an HC judge who decides to go the way Justice Karnan has. Karnan's repeated allegations and threats against colleague judges and the chief justices of Madras HC had led to his transfer to the Calcutta HC.But the transfer appears to have had the opposite impact, with his allegations growing more sulphuric. Justice Karnan is due to retire in less than three months, on June 11.

Despite being divested of judicial and administrative powers by a CJI-headed sevenjudge bench that has issued bailable arrest warrants against him for defying summons in the contempt of court proceedings drawn against him, Karnan has passed an order against the judges for ruining his reputation, seeking Rs 14 crore as damages.

Career

15-yr run: From AIADMK booth agent to judge to jail, May 9, 2017: The Times of India

HIGHLIGHTS

He was born on June 12, 1955 at Karnatham village in Tamil Nadu's Cuddalore district.

His father was a President's award winning teacher but it was his mother who taught him in his childhood.

Justice Karnan completed his bachelor in law degree from Madras Law College in 1983 and immediately enrolled as an advocate.

From a humble Dalit advocate doubling up as a political party's booth agent in Tamil Nadu in 2002 to be among a chosen few appointed to a high constitutional post in 2009 and then pushing the self-destruct button to end up in jail in 2017.

This is Justice Chinnaswamy Swaminathan Karnan's unenviable roller-coaster 15-year journey and could be the script for a Bollywood film. Described by his ex-colleagues in Madras HC as a loner who gave vent to his persecution mentality, Justice Karnan resorted to wild allegations against judges and successive chief justices of Madras HC almost immediately after he took oath as a judge in March 2009.

He regularly wrote to the President, the CJI and the chairperson of the SC Commission accusing other judges of discriminatory behaviour towards him. Nearly two years ago, he threatened contempt proceedings against then Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, forcing Madras HC to rush to the SC for remedy. The SC stayed Justice Karnan's order. To avoid such embarrassment, the SC collegium headed by then CJI TS Thakur transferred Justice Karnan from Madras HC to Calcutta HC in March last year.

Acerbic verbal attacks against his colleagues and flaunting the Dalit card did not go with his humble background. He was born on June 12, 1955 at Karnatham village in Tamil Nadu's Cuddalore district. His father was a President's award winning teacher but it was his mother who taught him in his childhood. In school, he was an NCC cadet.

Justice Karnan completed his bachelor in law degree from Madras Law College in 1983 and immediately enrolled as an advocate. He had an inclination towards politics and became a booth-level election agent for AIADMK in the 2002 assembly polls. He got disenchanted with the party and switched allegiance to Congress, an Intelligence Bureau report said.

By 2005, he was a known face in Madras HC as he served as legal adviser for Chennai Metro Water, as a government advocate and even as standing counsel for the central government in the HC. He was appointed as a judge in 2009.

In 2015, Justice Karnan plunged Madras HC into a huge crisis by threatening contempt of court proceedings against then CJ Sanjay Kishan Kaul, now a judge of the SC, by accusing him of interfering in his judicial work and seeking a CBI probe into alleged forged educational qualification of another HC judge.

Apart from contempt of court action, Justice Karnan threatened to pass orders and direct the National Commission for Scheduled Castes to initiate a detailed inquiry against the HC chief justice for harassing him, a member of the Dalit community. He also threatened to slap a case against the chief justice under stringent provisions of SCST Atrocities (Prevention) Act.

A beleaguered HC rushed to the SC and accused Justice Karnan of judicial indiscipline, challenging the authority of the HC CJ, passing order without jurisdiction and lacking in self-restraint.On May 11, 2015, the SC restrained Justice Karnan from initiating any action against the chief justice.

But restraint was a word alien to Justice Karnan, who continued his diatribe against the CJ and other judges and kept writing letters to the PM, the CJI and circulated the letters among advocates. Exasperated by his indiscipline, the SC advised the President to transfer him to Calcutta HC. The end game began on January 23 when he wrote to the CBI director to probe corruption charges against 20 sitting and retired judges of the SC and Madras HC. The apex court initiated contempt proceedings against him on February 8.

2017/ Supreme Court ruling

6 month jail term and a prohibition on media

Dhananjay Mahapatra, In a 1st, SC jails a judge, gives 6-mth prison term to Karnan , May 10, 2017: The Times of India 

Media Barred From Reporting His Statements

The Supreme Court created two firsts in judicial history -it jailed sitting high court judge C S Karnan for six months, convicting him of contempt of court, and it gagged the media rom reporting his reaction or is future statements.

The SC convicted Calcutta HC's Justice Karnan of gross riminal contempt of the apex court, judiciary and judicial rocess while sentencing him.t asked the West Bengal police chief to constitute a team to arrest Karnan immediately and lodge him in jail.

A seven-judge bench of CJI J S Khehar and Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur, P C Ghose and Kurian Joseph sentenced Karnan, who yet again disobeyed the apex court's order to be present in court, to six months in jail for repeated defiance of orders and aggravating his offence with purported judicial orders against the CJI and other SC judges. Keeping in mind Justice Karnan's penchant for passing orders from his residence and handing them to the media to embarrass the CJI and SC judges, the bench in an unprecedented order barred the media from reporting any statement made by Justice Karnan in future. On Tuesday , the court addressed the question whether punishment to Justice Karnan be delayed till he retired on June 11. “We will create a blemish if we do not punish him just because he is a judge. Contempt has no different colours -for a common man or a judge. We cannot differentiate that he is a judge in a contempt case.“

Justice Karnan has been repeatedly passing judgments despite the SC on February 8 initiating suo motu contempt proceedings against him and stripping him of judicial and administrative work. During the three-monthlong proceedings, Justice Karnan was required to be present before the court on four occasions but he presented himself only once on March 31. On that day , the court gave Justice Karnan the option of apologising for his conduct and being let off. He spurned the offer.

Instead of appearing before the court, Justice Karnan “initiated“ contempt proceedings against the CJI and six judges on the bench, imposed travel restrictions on them and ordered their medical treatment as a counter to the SC's May 1 order seeking his examination by a medical board to ascertain his mental health.

Justice Karnan passed a purported order convicting the CJI and seven SC judges under various laws, including SCST Prevention of Atrocities Act and sentenced them to five years imprisonment in addition to fines.The bench said the team of doctors which went to examine Justice Karnan had not contradicted the judge's claim that he was of sound mind. “So we will take that he is of sound mind. But then, what is the consequence?“ it asked.

Additional solicitor general Maninder Singh, Madras HC's counsel K K Venugopal and SC Bar Association president Rupinder Singh Suri were unanimous in their view that Justice Karnan had been given a long rope and the time had come to punish him. Venugopal thought for a while and inquired from the court whether it would be prudent to allow the judge to retire on June 11 and then impose punishment as sending a sitting judge to jail would create a blemish in judicial history . “You must have seen the last order he has passed. He has sentenced us. You can understand the gravity of the situation. Whoever comes before the court must come as a citizen of India and there will be no separate treatment for a judge or a common man.“

The seven judges assembled at 10.37am, spending seven minutes past the scheduled assembling time in a standing conference behind the CJI's courtroom discussing the case and possibilities. But the 15 minutes that followed offered them no other option but to send Justice Karnan to jail.

June 2017: Arrest

A Subburaj, Dwaipayan Ghosh & Rohit Khanna, Karnan, on run for 43 days and held, June 21, 2017: The Times of India

Former Calcutta high court (HC) judge C S Karnan's life as a fugitive for 43 days ended abruptly when a team of West Bengal police tracked him down and arrested him from a house on the outskirts of Coimbatore. He was later ta ken to Chennai on a latenight flight.

Karnan had been switching his location, SIM cards and mobile phones since May 9, when the Supreme Court took the unprecedented decision of jailing him for six months for gross contempt of court. Though his mobile phone signals were initially track ed to the Tamil Nadu Andhra Pradesh border, he started moving bet ween Coimbatore in Ta mil Nadu and Kochi in Kerala. Karnan entered Coimbatore four days ago, and soon the Coimbatore cyber crime cell picked up his mobile phone signals. His exact location was ascertained at 6.30pm on Tuesday .He was found in the company of an advocate. For about 30 minutes, he did not cooperate with the police, said an officer who was part of the crack team.

“He kept questioning us, as to under what authority we were there to arrest him. He refused to come with us, without reporters,“ he said. When the vehicle entered the airport premises, a grinning Karnan waved at the crowd of curious onlookers, the officer said. He insisted on addressing the media, despite being cautioned that the apex court had barred media from airing or publishing his statements.Though the ex-judge spoke of the judiciary , himself and the controversy surrounding him, TOI chooses to withhold them in deference to the Supreme Court's fiat barring media from publishing them.

Though three teams of cops were present at the time of his arrest, only three SPs travelled with Karnan to Chennai from where he would be taken to Kolkata on “the first available flight“.

See also

Judiciary, superior: India