CJI TS Thakur hints at end of impasse in Madras High Court over Justice Karnan

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India TS Thakur on Friday hinted at the end of a judicial impasse in the Madras High Court over the conduct of controversial judge CS Karnan who has alleged caste discrimination and has threatened to take judicial action against the Chief Justice over this.

“We have taken a decision yesterday,” Justice Thakur said when asked to intervene to prevent Justice Karnan from initiating any further action on this score against fellow judges and the Chief Justice. Senior advocate KK Venugopal appearing for the High Court Registrar General urged the bench, comprising Justices M Eqbal and R Banumathi, to list the appeal against Justice Karnan’s order early.

The CJI without explaining what was being done to deal with the issue said: “We have taken a decision at our meeting yesterday. We will list this petition on Monday.” The fresh petition referred to three letters written by Justice Karnan, one to the Chief Justice, and two others to another judge and the state Home Secretary.

Justice Karnan in his letter to the CJ alleged that he was left out of the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy functions as he was a SC. All participants were upper caste judges and there was no representative from SC or ST, he alleged. He claimed that his name was removed to make way for a junior judge who belonged to the upper caste.

He urged the CJI to take a liberal attitude and pointed out that he had “on Aug 21, 2015, declared that you are an offender under SC/ST Atrocity Act….” “Now I am openly declaring that you have a possessive mind of caste feeling, a judicial observation that is certainly not conducive for the high ideals of our august court and the theme of this invitation ‘The March of Law — the Way Forward’”.

He asked a fellow judge to go on leave on the ground and sought grant police protection to a Madurai-based advocate, in his two other letters. All these have been challenged by the high court. Last year, the Supreme Court had in May stayed Justice Karnan’s suo motu order directing contempt proceedings against the Chief Justice for undoing his judicial orders by administrative ones.