Retired HC judge Karnan arrested from Tamil Nadu resort

Coimbatore/Kolkata, June 20

Absconding former Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan was on Tuesday night arrested by the West Bengal CID from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, more than a month after the Supreme Court sentenced him to six months imprisonment for contempt of court.
“We arrested former high court judge Karnan at around 6.45 pm from a private resort at Malumichampatti in Coimbatore,” a senior officer of the CID told PTI in Kolkata.

Karnan (62), who retired from service on June 12, had been “hiding” in the resort for the last few days and tried to resist the team of CID officers from West Bengal when it went there to arrest him.
“He (Karnan) resisted our officers and there was an argument also. Despite that, we arrested him,” he said, adding that the former judge will be produced in a court in Chennai tomorrow before being taken to Kolkata.
Three police teams from Kolkata were camping in Coimbatore, around 550 km from Chennai, for the past three days and traced Karnan on the basis of his mobile phone calls.
The police in Tamil Nadu gave the technical support to trace his whereabouts, officials in Coimbatore said.
The apex court had sentenced Karnan to six months jail for contempt of court on May 9, when he was a serving judge of the Calcutta High Court.
Karnan, evading arrest since May 9, became the first high court judge to have retired as a fugitive.
A customary farewell by the high court administration to the retiring judge could not be held in the Calcutta High Court as Karnan was not present.
“A farewell given by the administration is held, which is attended by judges and senior lawyers and speeches are made as per the custom. This was not held as he was not present,” Calcutta High Court Registrar General Sugato Majumdar had said.
A seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India J S Khehar, had asked the West Bengal director general of police to take Karnan, who has been on a warpath with the Supreme Court for the last several months, into custody.
He has the dubious distinction of being the first sitting high court judge to be awarded a jail term by the apex court.