Take action on Karnan

How do you solve a problem like Karnan? This may be one of the trickiest issues the Indian judiciary faces. A seven-member bench hauled up the judge who went rogue not only in spewing corruption allegations against colleagues in a letter to the PM and holding press conferences to publicise vague charges of graft, but also openly defied the Supreme Court by refusing to appear to explain his conduct. After a bailable warrant was issued to force him to appear March 31, Justice Karnan declared he would defy it. He must be brought to account and admonished for attempts to denigrate the judiciary. But how will the court act, given that it has no suo motu powers to remove a judge?

Justice Karnan has already been stripped of his judicial and administrative duties. Under the law, he can only be impeached by Parliament. Earlier, judges quit even when a motion failed in Parliament. In our history, only one judge was impeached — Justice Soumitra Sen — in the Rajya Sabha, and he quit before the matter reached the Lok Sabha. Judge Karnan seems made of a different mould: he is virtually challenging the system to remove him. It is moot whether it is Parliament’s duty to take up cudgels on the judiciary’s behalf to rein in a recalcitrant judge. He plays the dalit card all the time, without wondering how he got this far if the system was truly discriminatory. A legal eagle has even questioned his sanity. But it does appear the judge has placed himself on the road to perdition.