Former HC judge CS Karnan arrested in Chennai over remarks on judges

In the video, which was doing the rounds on social media, Karnan was purportedly seen making objectionable comments against women, threatening sexual violence against people in the judiciary, spouses of judges and judicial officers.

He alleged that some judges of the SC and the HC had “sexually assaulted women court staff and women judges,” and even named those alleged victims. The complaint sent to CJI Bobde said Karnan’s statements amount to “a horrific act of violence and an affront to the dignity of all women” and that his statements “reveal a deep-rooted misogyny and are an assertion of patriarchal construction of gender and sexuality, where women are considered as private property of men.”

After his arrest, Karnan was taken to the city police commisionerate before being taken to the magistrate for judicial custody.

A file picture of Justice Karnan at Presidency Jail in Kolkata. (Photo: Express)

Two months ago, Karnan had also faced complaints of trespassing into the residence of Supreme Court judge Justice R Banumathi at Kalashetra Colony near Thiruvanmiyur. The police registered a case against five men in this regard, but Karnan was not named in the case.

He had courted controversy during his service as well, and faced six-month imprisonment by a seven-judge bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India JS Khehar in May 2017, for contempt of SC, judiciary and the judicial process.

He was sent to prison hardly six months before his retirement as a judge of Kolkata HC. Before his stint in Kolkata HC, Karnan had faced several corruption allegations in Madras HC. Karnan used to claim that it was his Dalit background that made him a target of the top judiciary.

Karnan was notorious for his self-styled orders; many released on his personal letterheads, against the senior-most judges of SC and the Madras HC. During his tenure in Madras HC, he had even threatened contempt of court proceedings against the then CJ of Madras HC, Sanjay K Kaul. And a seven-judge bench of SC had, at one point, before he was sentenced to prison, ordered him to be medically examined by a board of doctors in Kolkata as they wondered whether Justice Karnan was “feigning mental imbalance.” This order was following Karnan’s order, from Kolkata HC, directing CJI Khehar and seven SC judges to appear before him in Kolkata on May 1, 2017.