Kolkata/New Delhi, June 21: Former Calcutta High Court judge C S Karnan was Wednesday lodged in a Kolkata jail even as he failed to get any last-minute reprieve from the Supreme Court after being on the run for six weeks.
The 62-year-old Karnan, who was arrested in Tamil Nadu Tuesday evening, earned the dubious distinction of being the first sitting high court judge to be sent to jail. He has been evading arrest since May 9 when a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court handed down a six-month prison term for contempt of court.
Karnan, who retired as Calcutta High Court judge June 12, was arrested by the West Bengal CID from a private resort at Malumichampatti, about six km near Coimbatore, where he was “hiding” for the past few days. The former judge was taken to Presidency correctional home (jail) straight from the airport in Kolkata after he was brought from Chennai by a team of West Bengal state CID officers by an Air India flight, a senior police officer said.
Dressed in a full-sleeved white shirt and pants, Karnan came out of the airport escorted by policemen in civil dress.
He was whisked off by the police when reporters tried to approach him. “His medical tests were completed at the airport and the judge was taken straightaway to the jail,” he said. Tight security arrangements were made at the airport where senior police officers, including Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, were present.
A senior official at the Presidency jail said that Karnan complained of chest pain soon after he was taken inside and a team of doctors from the jail hospital was examining him. “He is old and seems to be unwell too. We do not want to take any chance. An ECG was done on him,” he said.
The official said Karnan might be moved to a state-run hospital if anything wrong was found in his medical report. Three police teams from Kolkata were camping in Coimbatore and traced Karnan on the basis of his mobile phone calls with the Tamil Nadu Police providing technical support to trace his whereabouts, a senior local police officer had said. Karnan failed to get any last-minute reprieve after the apex court refused to entertain his plea for interim bail and suspension of the six-month sentence. PTI