Nearly 16 km from Vridhachalam, black flags festoon the entrance to a little known village that has shot to national prominence as the native place of Calcutta High Court Judge C. S. Karnan who has been incommunicado ever since a Supreme Court Bench sentenced him to six months in prison for contempt of court. While the storm rages outside over the sentencing of a sitting judge, and debating his role in the entire drama, at his village there is a palpable solidarity with the judge.
A large banner of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi urging the Supreme Court to review the Constitutional validity of its order in Justice C.S. Karnan’s case looms over the intersection of the Ulundurpet-Tiruchi Main Road that connects to Vridhachalam in Cuddalore district.
Small black flags are fixed to the Ambedkar statue, thatched huts and concrete buildings in Karnatham colony belonging to Dalits — the origins from which Justice Karnan must have fought through odds to rise to the highest ranks of the Indian judiciary.
“This (black flags) is to show our displeasure over Supreme Court’s order sentencing a Judge from our village to six months imprisonment,” states a villager.
In the village with a population of 2,000 people, the ‘colony’ where Dalits live is clearly demarcated from the place where the backward castes including Udayars, Naidus, Solai Chettiars and Vanniyars live.
The villagers, irrespective of the communities they belong to, fondly remember Justice Karnan.
“He was a very calm person who provided free legal advice to the villagers when he was an advocate,” said N.Sundaram, a schoolmate of Justice Karnan, who studied in Mangalampettai High School.
He adds: “Karnan studied in the Adi Dravidar Welfare School which provided primary education for the Dalits in the colony, and then joined the Mangalampettai High School. It is only in the last four to five years that Dalits and other caste children study in the same primary school, which was not the case when we were studying.”
Mr. Sundaram said that people in the village had deep respect for the judge. “I am from the Udayar community. Yet, we used to call him up for any legal advice. But, we hardly spoke after he became a judge. We met him only when he visited the village. It is unfortunate that he has been sentenced to imprisonment.”
A relative of Justice Karnan recalled him as a person who socialised with people in the village even after he was selected as a High Court judge. However, he said that none of his close or distant relatives had been in contact with him.
