C. S. Karnan, a former judge of the Madras and Calcutta High Courts, died in Chennai on Friday, 13 November. He was 71.
Karnan joined the Madras High Court as a judge in 2009 and transferred to the Calcutta High Court in 2016. His tenure drew national attention in 2017, when he became the first sitting High Court judge in India to be sentenced to prison for contempt of court.
The 2017 Supreme Court proceedings
A seven-judge bench led by then Chief Justice of India J. S. Khehar found Karnan guilty of contempt and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment on 9 May 2017. The Court had earlier directed him to stop handling judicial and administrative work while it heard the matter.
Police arrested Karnan in June 2017, after he had retired from the Calcutta High Court. The case remains a rare instance of the Supreme Court exercising its contempt powers against a serving High Court judge.