Five months after being released from jail for serving time for contempt of court, the former Calcutta and Madras High Court judge JS Karnan announced his decision to launch his party, the ‘Anti-Corruption Dynamic Party,’ in May 2018.
On Friday, the party’s flag was unveiled. It bears a symbol of a stick condemning what appears to be cash being passed from one hand to another on a backdrop of blue, yellow, and green.
The party plans to make women contest in all 543 constituencies for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Karnan had earlier told TOI that he had been asked to be the sole male candidate and contest from Varanasi, but that he feels this constituency too should be contested by a woman. He stated that ‘women have been discriminated against severely,’ and hence opted to have women contest in all the constituencies.
On January 23, 2017 Karnan had published an open letter to the Prime Minister with a list of names of sitting and retired Supreme and High Court judges, claiming that they were corrupt. Later in May, he sentenced then Chief Justice of India, Jagdish Singh Khehar, and seven other Supreme Court judges to five years of imprisonment after holding them guilty under the SC/ST Atrocities act.
He was later sentenced by the Supreme Court on May 9, 2017 to serve six months in prison for contempt of court.
The retired judge was arrested on June 20, 2017 by West Bengal CID officials in Coimbatore after absconding, following a Supreme Court judgment on May 9, 2017.
The official statement by the court was made available on July 5, 2017 and stated that Justice CS Karnan committed the “grossest and gravest act of contempt of court, thereby making himself liable to be punished, for his unsavoury actions and behaviour.”
After serving the sentence, he was released on December 20, 2017.