Justice CS Karnan of the Madras High Court is at it again. The judge on Saturday shot off three separate letters where he made several allegations including a caste bias in the collegium system.
In the first letter to Chief Justice of the Madras High Court Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Karnan accuses Kaul of 'harassment' and 'belittlement.'
According to a report in Live Law, an extract from the letter, which is also marked to the President and CJI reads:
Since your Lordship is solely in-charge of the Madras High Court and invested with administrator power, your Lordship has elected to allot me insignificant/dummy portfolios while those juniors to me, have been allotted significant assignments, Which is tantamount to belittling my capabilities as a judge of many years in this August Court. Being a Dalit do you expect me to take such treatment lying down? Or do you expect me to fight for my rights till the bitter end?
Karnan also wrote another letter to union law minister Sadananda Gowda, where he attacked the collegium System and said that the "selection would go to close associates and good friends” and added that it should "be rooted out lock, stock and barrel."
Justice Karnan is no stranger to controversies with at least three successive chief justices having written to the Supreme Court, heaping allegations against him, the Times of India reports.
TOI also reports:
The third letter addressed to principal accountant general in Chennai demanded a special audit to 'determine whether the chief justice and registrar-general were eligible to utilise government funds. "If you ascertain that they have misused the government funds, then I request you to consider whether initiation of appropriate proceedings against the said persons could be taken," he said.
Earlier this year, Justice CS Karnan had threatened to file contempt of court proceedings against Chief Justice Sanjay K Kaul blaming him of interfering in his judicial work and asking a CBI probe into alleged forged educational qualification of another HC judge.
Karnan had also threatened that he will tell the National Commission on Scheduled Castes to start an investigation against the chief justice for harassing him and also threatened to file a case under the provisions of SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act.
For this, the Madras High Court had gone to the Supreme Court and accused Justice Karnan of judicial indiscipline and for challenging the authority of the chief justice. The Supreme Court on May 11 stopped CS Karnan from taking any action against the Chief Justice.