After being elusive for a month, Karnan arrested in Coimbatore
CHENNAI: After playing hide and seek with the police hot on his trail, justice CS Karnan, a former Kolkata high court judge, was ferreted out of hiding from a private college near Malmuchiampatti village near Karpagam college in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu by three teams of the West Bengal police.
Police sources said that Karnan argued with the policemen who came to arrest him and resisted.
Raj Kanojia, director general of police (Home Guard), West Bengal, told mediapersons that they arrested Karnan at around 7pm.
A six-member team led by him had been camping in Chennai to track the missing judge’s wheremissioner abouts.
Peter Ramesh Kumar, the advocate defending Karnan, also confirmed his arrest.
Coimbatore police provided technical support to the visiting Bengal Police team, in Tamil Nadu for over a month now following the court order of Karnan’s arrest. The teams had been camping in Coimbatore for the last three days.
Coimbatore city police com- Amalraj said that they had only given technical support to the Bengal police to trace Karnan’s whereabouts.
The judge will be taken to Kolkata to serve the sentence. But in order to do so, the police would need a transit remand expected to be issued on Wednesday, said a senior police official.
The arrest came after more than a month of hunting for the judge who vanished after the Supreme Court handed him a six-month prison term for contempt of court. After the May 8 judgment by a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, Karnan went underground amid reports he had travelled back to Kolkata by road.
He has been evading arrest since May 9 after being given the jail term . The court later turned down his pleas for staying the sentence.
Karnan retired on June 12 after completing 62 years of age. No customary farewell was given to him in the Calcutta HC in view of his absence.
Though the former judge arrived in Chennai on the day the Supreme Court gave the verdict, his whereabouts were not known thereafter with Kolkata Police continuing the search.
Karnan had on May 12 moved the apex court for relief, saying neither the high courts nor their judges, were “subordinate” to it.
He had sought recall of the SC’s order, contending he could not be held guilty of contempt.
Karnan, who enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu in 1983, was appointed a judge of Madras High Court in 2009.