Kolkata: Retired justice CS Karnan lodged in Presidency Jail after SC rejects his bail plea
The former high court judge had undergone medical tests at the Kolkata airport before being taken to the correctional home.
Retired Kolkata High Court judge Justice CS Karnan was lodged in Kolkata’s Presidency Jail on Wednesday, a day after he was arrested, ANI reported.
Karnan was brought to Chennai from Coimbatore past midnight on Tuesday. He was flown to Kolkata’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport earlier on Wednesday by an Air India flight and escorted by West Bengal CID officers.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to suspend Karnan’s six-month jail term in a contempt case and maintained that he must serve the entire sentence. “His medical tests were completed at the airport and he was taken straightaway to the jail,” PTI quoted an unidentified police official as saying.
Karnan, who had been absconding since May 9, was apprehended on Tuesday from a house in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. To escape arrest, he had checked into resorts under false names and switched cellphones to avoid being tracked, according to NDTV.
The 62-year-old’s term as a High Court judge ended while he had evaded arrest. The Supreme Court convicted him of contempt for accusing top court judges of corruption, but Karnan has maintained that he was being targeted for being a Dalit. The apex court bench had also questioned Karnan’s mental health on multiple occasions.