Ex-judge Karnan held in TN after 43-day hunt
A Subburaj, Dwaipayan Ghosh & Rohit Khanna
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Coimbatore Kolkata:
TNN
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The 43-day fugitive life of former judge of Calcutta high court, Justice CS Karnan, came to an abrupt end on Tuesday when a team of West Bengal police tracked him down and arrested him from a house on the outskirts of Coimbatore.He was taken to Chennai on a late-night flight.Karnan had been switching his location, SIM cards and mobile phones since May 9, when the Supreme Court took the unprecedented decision to jail him for six months for gross contempt of court. Though initially his mobile phone signals were tracked to the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border, he started moving between Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Kochi in Kerala.
Karnan entered Coimbatore four days ago, and soon the Coimbatore cyber crime cell picked up his mobile phone signals. His exact location was ascertained at 6.30pm on Tuesday . He was found in the company of an advocate.For about 30 minutes, he did not cooperate with the police, said an officer who was part of the crack team.
“He kept questioning us, as to under what authority we were there to arrest him. He re fused to come with us, without reporters. He later agreed to board our vehicle after being informed that reporters were waiting for him at the airport,“ he said.
When the vehicle entered the airport premises, a grinning Karnan waved at the crowd of curious onlookers, the officer said. He insisted on addressing the media despite being cautioned that the apex court had barred media from airing or publishing his statements. Though the ex-judge spoke of the judiciary, himself and the controversy surround ing him, TOI chooses to withhold them in deference to the Supreme Court's fiat barring media from publishing them. Though three teams of police personnel, headed by a superintendent of police-rank officer each, were present at the time of his arrest, only three SPs travelled with Karnan to Chennai from where he would be taken to Kolkata on “the first available flight“. Nearly 50 policemen, headed by deputy commissioner S Lakshmi, provided technical and logistical support to the West Bengal police team to secure Karnan.
Asked about the arrest, a senior criminal investigation department officer from Kolkata vestigation department officer from Kolkata said: “We had a huge problem. There was quite a scene at the hotel as the retired judge kept insisting on the presence of the media even though we tried to explain to him that we were just following SC orders.“ Karnan, according to plans now, would be taken to Presidency Jail, the largest of Bengal's prisons. The SC had created a first in India's judicial history by sentencing a sitting HC judge to a prison term for gross criminal contempt of the apex court, the judiciary and the judicial process. Presidency Jail houses, among others, Kader Khan (main accused in the 2012 Park Street rape case), Gautam Kundu (accused in the Rose Valley scam) and Chhatradhar Mahato (a senior Maoist ideologue).
Karnan entered Coimbatore four days ago, and soon the Coimbatore cyber crime cell picked up his mobile phone signals. His exact location was ascertained at 6.30pm on Tuesday . He was found in the company of an advocate.For about 30 minutes, he did not cooperate with the police, said an officer who was part of the crack team.
“He kept questioning us, as to under what authority we were there to arrest him. He re fused to come with us, without reporters. He later agreed to board our vehicle after being informed that reporters were waiting for him at the airport,“ he said.
When the vehicle entered the airport premises, a grinning Karnan waved at the crowd of curious onlookers, the officer said. He insisted on addressing the media despite being cautioned that the apex court had barred media from airing or publishing his statements. Though the ex-judge spoke of the judiciary, himself and the controversy surround ing him, TOI chooses to withhold them in deference to the Supreme Court's fiat barring media from publishing them. Though three teams of police personnel, headed by a superintendent of police-rank officer each, were present at the time of his arrest, only three SPs travelled with Karnan to Chennai from where he would be taken to Kolkata on “the first available flight“. Nearly 50 policemen, headed by deputy commissioner S Lakshmi, provided technical and logistical support to the West Bengal police team to secure Karnan.
Asked about the arrest, a senior criminal investigation department officer from Kolkata vestigation department officer from Kolkata said: “We had a huge problem. There was quite a scene at the hotel as the retired judge kept insisting on the presence of the media even though we tried to explain to him that we were just following SC orders.“ Karnan, according to plans now, would be taken to Presidency Jail, the largest of Bengal's prisons. The SC had created a first in India's judicial history by sentencing a sitting HC judge to a prison term for gross criminal contempt of the apex court, the judiciary and the judicial process. Presidency Jail houses, among others, Kader Khan (main accused in the 2012 Park Street rape case), Gautam Kundu (accused in the Rose Valley scam) and Chhatradhar Mahato (a senior Maoist ideologue).
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