Former judge CS Karnan, arrested for contempt of court, walks out of Presidency Jail

Justice Karnan was arrested by the Kolkata Police in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu on June 20 in connection with a contempt of court case.

He was later lodged in Kolkata’s Presidency Jail after the Supreme Court refused to grant him interim bail.

A vacation bench of the apex court, headed by Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, had refused to suspend the six-month prison sentence for Justice Karnan in the case.

Mathew J Nedumpara, a lawyer appearing for Justice Karnan, mentioned the matter before the vacation bench of the top court. 

Nedumpara pleaded to the apex court seeking bail and suspension of the six months jail sentence, to which the court observed, “The seven-judge bench had passed the order. It binds everybody. It binds us also.”

The apex court had on May 19 rejected Justice Karnan’s plea for recall of the six-month jail term for contempt of court, stating that the petition was “not maintainable” in the court.

“I am constrained, but to hold that the present writ petition is not maintainable. The relief, if any, lies somewhere else. I, thus, see no reasonable cause to receive the present writ petition for registration under the provisions of the order XV, rule (5) of the Supreme Court rules, 2013,” the Supreme Court Registrar said in the order.

Justice Karnan had approached the apex court seeking the recall of its order in which he was convicted and was sentenced to six-month imprisonment.

The top court took suo moto cognizance of numerous letters written by him against judges of the Madras High Court and the apex court and restrained him from exercising administrative and judicial powers from February 8.

Karnan is the first ever sitting judge of a higher court in judicial history to be sentenced to jail term.

Bureau Report