The Madras High Court Registry authorities made an urgent plea on Friday to the Supreme Court to intervene following a letter shot off by its sitting judge, Justice C.S. Karnan on February 10, accusing Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of caste discrimination.
The Registry, represented by senior advocate K.K. Venugopal and advocate Nikhil Nayyar, sought an early hearing before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, who agreed to list the plea on Monday. The Chief Justice, without elaborating, said a decision was taken on the issue at a meeting held on Thursday.
The Registry brought to the apex court’s attention a letter addressed by Justice Karnan to Chief Justice Kaul about the alleged “removal” of his name from the Board of Governors at the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy. Justice Karnan said he was “replaced with a junior upper caste judge.”
Justice Karnan also said there were no representatives from the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe and his name was “removed” from the inaugural function of the Regional Centres of the Academy at Coimbatore and Madurai on February 21.
The letter ends with a direction to the High Court Registry to number the letter as a suo motu writ petition. The letter was copied to 13 Constitutional authorities and political leaders.
The Supreme Court had earlier stayed an interim order passed by Justice Karnan, allegedly undermining the authority of High Court and Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.
Staying Justice Karnan’s order of April 30, 2015, passed in suo motu proceedings, was in relation to the appointment of officers of lower judiciary. The apex court had ordered that Justice Karnan should be restrained from either hearing or issuing any further directions in the case.
At that time, Justice Karnan, in two separate unsigned letters sent to Chief Justice Kaul had warned contempt of court proceedings against the latter and said he would ask the National Human Rights Commission to initiate proceedings against him under the SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act.
Justice Karnan
had accused Chief Justice S.K. Kaul
of caste discrimination
