Calcutta High Court Judge CS Karnan, who has been sentenced to six months imprisonment by the Supreme Court, has slipped off the police radar, reports Times of India. A senior officer camping in Chennai told ToI:
We cannot go back to West Bengal without any development in the case because the order is from the Supreme Court. Additional teams will be called from West Bengal if needed.
The whereabouts of the judge who is set to retire on 12 June, has remained a mystery since 10 May, when the Kolkata police reached Chennai. Justice Karnan was found guilty of contempt for hurling corruption charges against Supreme Court judges including the Chief Justice.
Karnan’s arrest orders had come a day after he sentenced Chief Justice of India J S Khehar and six other judges of the Supreme Court to five years in jail under the SC/ST act.
The court then directed the West Bengal Director General of Police to execute its orders ‘forthwith’. But a futile search for Karnan has lasted for over three weeks now. Even assistance from Tamil Nadu police, according to the report, has not been able to help West Bengal teams track down the judge who is on the run.
According to ToI, West Bengal Police Chief Raj Kanojia, who first claimed that the case was progressing well, is now clueless about the whereabouts of Justice Karnan. They reportedly even tried the ‘tower dump’ technique to track down Justice Karnan through his cellphone but even that failed to work.
(This article was originally published in The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)
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