Arrested former Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan was taken to a state-run hospital in Kolkata on Wednesday evening when he complained of chest pain, after he was flown in from Chennai on an Air India flight and sent to the Presidency Jail here. A senior prison official said:
Karnan complained of chest pain at the airport itself. He was checked by our doctors there and then brought him to the Presidency Correctional Home where he complained that his chest pain had aggravated.
It was learned that the 62-year-old Karnan’s blood pressure was found to be quite high and doctors at the Presidency Correctional Home prescribed him to be taken to the state-run SSKM hospital for further check-up.
Asked whether Karnan was likely to be admitted to the hospital, the officer said it would depend on the doctors who were conducting the medical check-up of the former judge. The officer added:
He is old and seems to be unwell too. We do not want to take any chance. An ECG was done on him.
Karnan had been evading arrest since the 9 May Supreme Court order awarding him a six-month jail term and was arrested on Tuesday night by a team of West Bengal CID from a private resort at Malumichampatti, about six km from Coimbatore, where he was allegedly hiding for the past few days.
Three police teams from Kolkata were camping in Coimbatore who traced Karnan on the basis of his mobile phone calls. Tamil Nadu police provided the technical support to trace his whereabouts, a senior local police officer had said.
Karnan, who earned the dubious distinction of being the first sitting high court judge to be awarded a jail term by the apex court, had retired from service on 12 June as a fugitive. A seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, had sentenced him to six months imprisonment for contempt of court.
The apex court refused to entertain Karnan’s bail plea or suspend the six-month sentence awarded to him. It said that only a special bench can hear the order passed by the seven-judge bench.
The bench told Karnan that the sentence was binding and it cannot be modified by another bench. The former judge was asked to mention it before the Chief Justice of India, post the summer vacation.
The Supreme Court held Justice Karnan in contempt after he “sentenced” Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and seven other apex court judges to five years of imprisonment.
Justice Karnan had “found them guilty” under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and the amended Act of 2015. He had also accused 20 sitting and retired Supreme Court and high court judges of being corrupt.
(With PTI, IANS inputs)
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