Before the arrest warrant was issued, police escorted the judge to the airport.

KOLKATA: At 4.42 am on Tuesday — when most residents of Rosedale complex in New Town were fast asleep — Justice C S Karnan was escorted out of the plush apartment by a team of Bidhannagar police officers for his 6.15am IndiGo flight to Chennai.Little did the police team know that six hours later, they would be entrusted to arrest the same man after the Supreme Court jailed the sitting Calcutta high court judge for six months, convicting him for contempt of court.The apex court ordered the West Bengal director general of police (DGP) to take Karnan in custody, who in turn asked the Bidhannagar Commissionerate to carry out the task. Only hours before, officials from the commissionerate had unwittingly helped Karnan an easy passage out of the city as he flew to his hometown in Chennai.“Being a sitting HC judge, he is entitled to police escort. So, we just did our duty by escorting his car out of the complex till the airport. How could we know we would have to arrest him a few hours later?” said a senior officer of the commissionerate.Around 11.40am, nearly an hour after the SCâs landmark order, senior Bidhannagar Commissionerate officers sent a team of officers to the Newtown Action Area III address. Officers ran to his ground floor flat in the complex, only to find it under lock and key.The officers checked the complex register and found an entry made at 4.42am, which mentions that WB 06C-0001, Karnanâs white sedan, left the compound behind WB 24Y-5941, a police escort car. “Justice Karnan was sitting in the back seat of the car like other days. As the police escort car approached, we opened the gates,” said a security guard.Senior officers said they would wait for the final order of the Supreme Court which, they claimed, had not reached them till late on Tuesday. However, sources in the department said they have communicated with their Chennai counterparts seeking help on Karnanâs whereabouts.A senior officer of the commissionerate said, as per rules, once they get a copy of the order, they would send a team of officers from Salt Lake to Chennai, who, with the help of Chennai police would need to approach Karnan with the arrest warrant and then produce him before the Supreme Court after taking transit remand from a Chennai court.In March this year, the chief of the West Bengal Police had come to Karnanâs rented home at New Town to serve a warrant ordered by the Supreme Court in a contempt case after the apex court asked the Bengal police chief to “personally” serve it to the HC judge, a first in the countryâs judicial history, after he skipped hearing in a contempt case.