The Supreme Court sentenced Calcutta High Court judge Justice C S Karnan to six-month jail on Tuesday, May 9. The order came after Karnan "sentenced" Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and six other Supreme Court judges to five years imprisonment on Monday after he "found them guilty" under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Act, 1989, and the amended Act of 2015.
Karnan has become the first sitting judge in the history of Indian judiciary to get jail. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has said the media should not publish any statement made by Karnan henceforth.
The order was issued amid the ongoing confrontation between the Supreme Court judges— justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur, Pinaki Chandr Ghose, Kurian Joseph and the CJI, who levelled contempt charges against Karnan earlier.
On Tuesday, May 2 Karnan had issued a non-bailable warrant against the seven Supreme Court judges from his residence in Kolkata after the Supreme Court had directed a medical evaluation of him to confirm if he was "feigning mental imbalance."
"The Registrar General [of], High Court at Calcutta is directed to issue the non-bailable warrant to the above-named accused [seven Supreme Court judges] to be executed through the Director-General of Police or Commissioner of Police of New Delhi," Justice Karnan said in his order.
On May 1, after the Apex Court issued an order to get Karnan's mental health ascertained by a panel of doctors, he issued an order instructing the Director-General of Police in New Delhi, to produce the seven judges before a psychiatric board of AIIMS. He even refused to undergo the medical evaluation and said the Apex court was trying to insult him as he was a Dalit judge.
In an earlier order, Karnan had asked all the seven Supreme Court Judges to be present in person before his court on May 28 and later "reposted" the matter to May 1.
"The tenor of the press briefings, as also the purported order passed by him [directing Chief Justice Khehar and the other Supreme Court judges to appear before him in Kolkata on May 1], indicate that he may not be in a position to defend himself in the present proceedings," said the Supreme Court Bench in its order for medical examination.
Karnan in his May 2 order had also called all the seven judges "absent".
The seven judges had issued contempt notice against Karnan in February when he had published an open letter to the Prime Minister and levelled corruption charges against 20 sitting and retired Supreme Court and High Court judges.
