Chasing Justice Karnan

For 43 days, he remained a fugitive, moving to different hideouts across south India. THE WEEK was close on his heels

- Rabi Banerjee

At the height of his feud with the Indian judicial system, Justice C.S. Karnan dared the Supreme Court to arrest him, but when it sentenced him to six months in jail, he just vanished, giving Kolkata Police the slip. For 43 days, he remained a fugitive, moving to different hideouts across south India, until his arrest on June 20 from a guest house in Coimbatore. Ironically, the arrest came on the day his supporters met Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad seeking his assistance in securing Justice Karnan’s retirement benefits.

When the West Bengal Police finally tracked him down, Justice Karnan asked them, “Could you not wait for some more days? My mercy petition is pending before the president.” But they were adamant. A member of the police team, in fact, started looking for air tickets to take him back to Kolkata. For a while, Justice Karnan sat still, his head bowed. A senior officer then told him, “Sir, you have to get ready. Whatever you want to say, you can tell the court.”

When Justice Karnan went to his room, he was asked to keep the door ajar. He changed his dress and came out. He did not call anybody, not even his son or wife. While in hiding, he only spoke to his son Sugen, an engineer who lives in Chennai, but from the mobile phone of his aide Monick Malaviya, who is an advocate.

“The police tracked Malaviya’s phone signals,” an upset Sugen told THE WEEK. Malaviya was in Chennai when Justice Karnan was arrested. “It was fishy. I had warned him about Malaviya’s mobile phone,” said Mathews J. Nedumpara, Justice Karnan’s counsel.

Were the police in Tamil Nadu involved in the arrest?