'Am quite normal': Justice Karnan declines to undergo medical examination

Calcutta high court judge Justice C S Karnan on Thursday declined to undergo a mental health check-up as ordered by the Supreme Court, telling a team of doctors he is ‘absolutely normal’ and has a ‘stable mind’.

Justice Karnan, who is on a warpath with the apex court in connection with a contempt case he is facing, also told the doctors that for holding a medical examination with regard to a person’s mental health, the guardian's consent was required and he had none in Kolkata.

A four-member team from Calcutta Pavlov Hospital, a state-run mental health hospital, accompanied by around 20 policemen visited his residence to implement the court order but was turned back after remaining there for about two hours.

The Supreme Court had on May 1 ordered medical examination of Karnan by a board of doctors to be set up by a government hospital in Kolkata to evaluate his mental health with police support.

The order was given after the defiant judge failed to appear in the apex court which took note of the ‘tenor’ of his press briefings and orders.

‘I declined to avail the medical treatment since I am absolutely normal and with a stable mind,” Karnan gave in writing to the doctors after refusing to undergo a medical check-up.

‘Further, it is my strong view that the Supreme Court order amounts to an insult and harassment to a Dalit Judge (myself),’ he said in a communication addressed to the chairman of the medical board from Calcutta Pavlov Hospital.

Justice Karnan also raised the issue of no guardian being present with him.

“As my family members are not here, there is no such consent. So any such medical test cannot be held,” he said.

He said that his wife, a professor, and a son, an engineer by profession, are in Chennai while his other son, also an engineer, is working in France.

A seven-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar, on May one had also directed the Director-General of Police of West Bengal to form a team of police officers which could assist the medical board in carrying out the medical examination of the high court judge.

The medical report of Justice Karnan has to be submitted ‘on or before May 8’ and the apex court would take up the contempt plea, initiated suo motu (on its own), for hearing a day after, it said.

A four-member team of doctors, headed by Pavlov Hospital superintendent Dr Ganesh Prashad, along with police officials led by the deputy commissioner (headquarter) of Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate, had gone to Justice Karnan’s residence in New Town, Kolkata in the morning. The team was at the judge’s home for about two hours.

In the communication, Justice Karnan said he was of the ‘firm view/opinion that the Supreme Court issuing orders/non-speaking orders, shortcoming and irregular orders, illegal orders and having lacuna (sic)’.

‘I urged the 7 judges to close the contempt proceeding and restore my judicial and administrative work in order to maintain the decorum, dignity and sanctity of the courts.

‘If a genuine man commits an error knowingly or unknowingly or inadvertently, but later on the said person rectifies his mistake, he is known as a perfect gentleman, after all we are human beings and not infallible,’ he said in the note.

Claiming that ‘the seven judges’ judicial services are not suitable for the Indian nation’, Justice Karnan said, “My deep request on behalf of 127 crores of our Indian people is to keep the welfare of the nation as a general requirement.”

“After issuing suo motu contempt proceedings, now the public have lost the confidence and trust with the Judiciary, therefore, once again I request the Hon’ble 7 Judges to do the right thing by resigning their Judicial posts,” he said.

The apex court has taken suo motu (on its own) cognisance of various letters written by Justice Karnan against judges of the Madras high court and the Supreme Court and restrained him from exercising administrative and Judicial power from February 8.

Justice Karnan appeared before the Supreme Court on March 31 in connection with the contempt proceeding, becoming the first high court judge to do so in the history of Indian Judiciary.

Photograph: PTI Photo