HC judge CS Karnan

NEW DELHI:The Supreme Court created history on Tuesday by holding sitting Calcutta HC judge C S Karnan guilty of contempt of court and punishing him with six month jail.

Karnan, who was to retire on June 11, will spend the last month of his tenure as judge and five months thereafter in jail.

A seven-judge bench headed by CJI JS Khehar said Justice Karnan is guilty of contempt of SC, judiciary and judicial process.

The Supreme Court ordered West Bengal DGP to take into custody the disgraced judge , who never tired in playing his dalit background to berate and pass unconscionable orders against the seven judges who had intimated contempt proceeding against him for making wild allegations against his colleagues in Madras HC, from where he was transferred to Calcutta HC.

Additional solicitor general Maninder Singh, senior advocate KK Venugopal and Rupinder Singh Suri agreed with the apex court that Justice Karnan has committed gross contempt of court and needed to be punished exemplarily.

Venugopal took a while to think and said said if Justice Karnan is sent to jail now it would create a blemish in the history of judiciary as a sitting judge being jailed. Should the court wait till his retirement, he asked.

But, the Supreme Court said contempt power does not recognise or differentiate who is what — a judge or a common man. "Whosoever commits contempt gets punished," the bench said while sentencing Justice Karnan.

Justice Karnan was sentenced in absentia. Taking note of his past purported judicial orders passed despite being stripped of judicial work, the Supreme Court also barred media from reporting his statements in future.

Read this story in Marathi Read this story in Gujarati

Read this story in Kannada

In Video: Supreme Court sentences Justice Karnan to 6 months in jail for contempt of court