A thorn in his own side? Calcutta HC lawyers boycott Justice Karnan’s court

Controversy seems to follow Justice Karnan wherever he goes. And this time it is the Calcutta High Court that has borne the brunt of the former Madras High Court judge’s eccentricity..A chain of rather unseemly events has led the Calcutta High Court Bar Association to pass a resolution to boycott Karnan J.’s court..The matter has its genesis in an order passed on May 20 of this year, wherein a Division Bench of Justice Ashim Kumar Roy and Justice Karnan denied bail to ten IVRCL officials implicated in the Vivekananda Road flyover collapse in Kolkata..However, Justice Karnan reportedly had a change of heart while examining the papers in his chambers, and decided to grant bail to the 10 accused..Yesterday, a miffed Justice Roy, the senior of the two, pointed out that the general practice was for judges to express opinions and take decisions while in open court. After a heated debate, the two judges left the court room at 11:45 am..But the matter did not end there. Members of the Bar had an axe to grind with Justice Karnan after Chief Public Prosecutor Manjit Singh and Additional Public Prosecutor Arun Maity alleged that the judge had misbehaved with them..In an e-mail to Bar & Bench, Vice-President of the Calcutta High Court Bar Association Protik Prokash Banerji narrated the events thus:.“There was an Executive Committee Meeting of the Bar Association scheduled at 1:15 pm in respect of the certificate of practice rules, among other things when a highly agitated Public Prosecutor and his Additional Public Prosecutor, and a few leaders of the Criminal Bar approached the Committee – of which I was a party – with a written complaint and also narrated the events of the past one month including that of the morning.”.The issue was then reserved for a General Body meeting at 4 pm..“Subsequently the General Body in an expression of its anguish decided not to participate in judicial proceedings before the Hon’ble Junior Judge in terms of the resolution and left the matter to the Hon’ble the Chief Justice to intervene.”.And it seems as though Chief Justice Manjula Chellur, being the master of the court’s roster has indeed intervened..Says, Banerji,.“Even though there is a daily cause list of cases on June 8, 2016 for the same Division Bench, the same cause list also gives the Senior Judge a separate Single Bench, with separate determination, quite apart from Justice Karnan, while there is no list of cases for Justice Karnan to hear singly. .It is reported that Justice Karnan has not attended court today. Which means effectively that the Division Bench of their Lordships is neither sitting nor is His Lordship the Hon’ble Justice Karnan taking up any matter. .We will have more clarity tomorrow.”.Banerji also clarified that Justice Karnan’s order can at best be treated as a dissenting opinion to the Division Bench’s verdict and that bail cannot be said to be granted in the case..This is not the first time Justice Karnan has taken matters into his own hands. In May last year, he accused Chief Justice of the Madras High Court Sanjay Kishan Kaul of maladministration. Justice Karnan subsequently initiated suo motu proceedings against the administrative decision of the Chief Justice and stayed the same..He also threatened to order a registration of an FIR against two apex court judges, Justice JS Khehar and Justice R Banumathi, under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act..More recently, he passed a suo motu order staying the Chief Justice of India’s order transferring him to the Calcutta High Court, an incident he later put down to “mental frustration resulting in the loss of mental balance.”.Image taken from here.