New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain former Calcutta High Court (HC) judge CS Karnan’s plea seeking bail and suspension of the six-month sentence awarded to him in May for contempt of court.
Justice (retired) Karnan was arrested in Tamil Nadu by West Bengal police on Tuesday night. He had gone underground a month ago to dodge arrest and claimed that he was being persecuted for being a Dalit (low-caste).
On Wednesday, Karnan’s advocate Mathew J. Nedumpara told the apex court that it had all the powers and should grant interim bail to Karnan until the reopening of the court. The vacation Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and S.K. Kaul said it could not override the earlier order of the seven-judge Bench.
“The court was bound by the order of the seven-judge Supreme Court Bench on the case and retired judge Karnan should mention the matter before a Bench of the Chief Justice. Only the special Bench could hear the plea,” the vacation Bench said.
Karnan retired on June 12 while he was absconding. He became the first serving HC judge to be sentenced to prison.
The court issued the contempt of court notice against him in February for degrading the judicial institution. The court also banned the Press from reporting his remarks.
The seven-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, heard Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi and said that Justice Karnan should face contempt proceedings for his malicious letters written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee against sitting HC and SC judges.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had issued an arrest order against him for his defamatory remarks against the top court’s collegium system.
Interestingly, for every order issued by SC on his case, Karnan passed a counter order. At one point, he ordered the arrest of SC judges.
In the wake of the controversial issue, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad last week said that Justice Karnan episode called for a greater scrutiny of the judiciary.
“As regards a specific case of a specific judge, I would not like to make any comment, except observe that may be there is a case for greater scrutiny and screening of judiciary. The particular incident you have quoted only underscores the compelling need,” he told media.
