Madras High Court Rejects Karnan's Defence Of 'Severe Mental Depression'; Denies Bail In Abusive Videos Case

The Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to grant bail to CS Karnan, former High Court judge, in a case relating to uploading of abusive online videos. A Single Bench of Justice V. Bharathidasan rejected Karnan's defence of mental instability and observed that the former Judge had made scathing remarks against Judicial institutions and the Judges with a predetermined mind, fully knowing the consequences of his actions. "A perusal of the transcribed text of all those video contents would clearly show that the petitioner made such abusive utterances consciously and with predetermined mind. Whenever the objectionable act of the petitioner was condemned by the well reasoned persons, he used to react quickly and start abusing them in vulgar language," the Bench held. Background An FIR was registered against Karnan on the complaint by Advocate Devika over his objectionable videos threatening sexual crimes against women relations of High Court and Supreme Court judges. Subsequently, the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu filed a petition in the Madras High Court seeking action against the ex-judge. On November 10, the High Court had ordered the blocking of the objectionable video links. Justices M Sathyanarayanan and R Hemalatha had observed therein: "It is rather unfortunate to note that the ninth respondent (Karnan), who held an important constitutional post, has gone to such a level to repeatedly make scandalous, obscene, vituperative & unparliamentary remarks against former & sitting judges of SC & HC and their family members, especially women." However, Karnan continued to upload objectionable abusive/ videos by changing accounts in various names, following which he was arrested and remanded to judicial custody on December 2, 2020. In his bail application, Karnan told the Madras High Court that he has been "suffering from serious and severe depression after his retirement" and that is why "he has been doing certain act unknowingly in an unregrettable fashion." Findings Deliberate actions The Single Judge noted that the defence of severe mental depression and incapacity to understand the nature of his act would not come to Karnan's aid because, "the sequence of the videos and the contents would prima facie show that the petitioner had done all such acts deliberately knowing fully well that what he was doing was wrong and contrary to law." In its order, the Single Judge noted that whenever the objectionable act of the petitioner was condemned by the well-reasoned persons, he used to react quickly and start abusing them in vulgar language. In this context, he recorded the following chronology of events: October 25 2020: First video was uploaded making vulgar allegations against Judges of th Supreme Court and the Madras High Court, their spouses and women court staff members. Immediately, a complaint was made by a practicing lawyer. Having come to know that, Karnan uploaded another video abusing the women lawyers including a woman senior counsel. November 6, 2020: Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry made a compliant and also filed a writ petition before the High Court seeking a direction for the removal of the objectionable and hateful videos. November 10, 2020: A Division Bench of the High Court passed an interim order directing the social media concerned to remove all those objectionable and hateful videos. Immediately, on the very same day, Karnan uploaded another video abusing the Presiding Judge of the Division Bench and also questioning his authority to hear the writ petition. Karnan also made abusing statement against the Co-Chairman of the Bar Council of India, who had argued the writ petition before the Division Bench. November 13, 2020: Two more complaints were filed by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and all such abusive videos were removed from the YouTube pursuant to the order passed by the court. Following this, Karnan again started uploading abusive videos by changing accounts in various names. November 11, 2020: Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry gave another complaint to the Police. Since no action was forthcoming, the Bar Council filed a petition under Section 482 of CrPC seeking direction to the Police to register the cases against Karnan. Having found about the same, Karnan uploaded another video wherein also he vulgarly abused the High Court Judges and the Co-Chairman of the Bar Council of India. In this backdrop, the Single Judge was of the opinion that, "petitioner was and is not having any physical or mental ailments which rendered his intellect weak. The utterances made by him in the videos would prima facie indicate that all those statements were made in a clear state of mind and uploaded the same on social media platforms fully knowing the consequences of his action and also the nature of the act he was doing. Therefore, the...

Madras High Court Rejects Karnan's Defence Of 'Severe Mental Depression'; Denies Bail In Abusive Videos Case

Akshita Saxena

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