Chennai: Four days after the West Bengal police team reached Chennai to execute an arrest order by Supreme Court order against Kolkata high court judge C. S. Karnan, the squad headed by DGP Raj Kanojia, is still hunting for the missing judge.
“We are looking for him and are positive about locating him,” he told this newspaper as he was rushing out of IPS officers’ mess in Egmore, where he stayed with his team, possibly pursuing a new lead about Karnan’s location.
According to him, the search for Justice Karnan is progressing well and he looked confident of securing the judge, who has gone missing since Wednesday morning from government guest house in Chepauk, Chennai, a day after the SC ordered six months’ jail term to the judge in a case of defamation.
When asked about the cooperation from the Tamil Nadu police in tracking the location of judge Karnan, he nodded positively and gave a clean chit to police here. “TN police are cooperating well,” said Raj Kanojia, the DGP, entrusted with the not very envious task of arresting a sitting Kolkata high court judge.
During the stay in Chennai the WB police team had many rounds of meetings with senior TN police officers including the TN DGP and Chennai city police commissioner. The state police had even accompanied the WB team to Srikalahasthi, a temple town Andhra Pradesh, on Wednesday hoping to locate Karnan there. But the police teams had to return empty-handed as Karnan had switched off his two mobile phones. Chennai’s cyber sleuths are also engaged in tracking mobile signals of missing judge besides keeping an eye on his contacts.
On Thursday Karnan’s lawyer Mathews J. Nedumpara, who represented the judge in SC, told this newspaper that he met his client in Chennai on Tuesday and got his affidavit and vakalat to represent him in SC.
A seven-judge Constitution bench, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice J S Khehar, sentenced Justice Karnan for six months imprisonment on Tuesday in a contempt case. SC had ordered West Benggal police to execute the order and take custody of sitting judge. The Supreme Court had on May 1 ordered Karnan’s medical examination on the ground that he was medically unfit to defend himself to the contempt proceedings initiated on February 8 for his letters to PM and constitutional authorities seeking probe against certain judges.
But Justice Karnan refused to undergo a medical test and on May 8, Monday, he had passed an order of jail term against eight SC judges. Following this, the SC had ordered his arrest on Tuesday.
