Karnataka High Court Sends Lawyer To Jail For One Week For Making ‘Wild Allegations’ Against Judges & Judicial System

A division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Ashok S Kinagi passed the order in a suo-motu contempt initiated in 2019, against advocate K S Anil, on February 2.

“This Court is left with no other option except to pass an order for taking the accused into judicial custody for committing contempt of Court,” said the bench.

The court directed that Anil be taken into judicial custody for a period of one week and produced before it on the next date of hearing, which is February 10.

It noted that the accused, who is present before the Court, firstly started arguing that the earlier notice issued to him was not properly served. He then made a submission that the observations made in the order dated 13.01.2023 are not in consonance with the events that had occurred on that day.

The bench perused the memo-cum-written submission filed by the accused urging it to transfer the matter to some other bench as he has filed a complaint against the Chief Justice and sitting Judge before Chief Justice of India and Department of Justice and others, accusing them of making wrong entries in order sheets.

The division bench said that “certain derogatory statements are made in the said memo” and asked the lawyer about the other details such as the date of the order etc, to which he replied saying this order is available on the website of the High Court.

On a statement made in the memo that he had undergone a dental surgery, the court asked the accused whether he requires some time to make oral submissions or to file written submissions.

"However, the accused avoided the query of the Court and started behaving arrogantly," said the bench.

The accused even put a question to the court as to how can he appear before two courts on one day. "In spite of our attempts to hear him patiently, the accused started making gestures in the Court," the bench noted. 

The court said the statement made by the accused making allegations against the judges clearly shows that the accused is having no regards to the judicial system. "The accused being a practising advocate and consistent behaviour of the accused on the earlier occasions and today making wild allegations against the judicial system and the Judicial Officers in particular indicates that he is trying to demean the institution and is lowering the image of the judicial system in the public eye,” it observed.

Case Title: High Court of Karnataka And K S Anil

Case No: Criminal CC 9 of 2019 C/w Criminal CC 13 of 2022