He was the first Indian High Court judge to be punished for contempt while in office but was arrested and jailed after retirement.

[1][2] Karnan was born on 12 June 1955 as Karunanithi Swaminathan in the village of Karnatham, in the Cuddalore district of erstwhile Madras (now Tamil Nadu), into a Dalit family.

[4] He changed his first name from Karunanithi to Karnan in 1991, on the insistence of his wife Saraswati due to numerological reasons.

[8] In November 2011, Karnan wrote to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) alleging caste-based harassment from other judges of the Madras High Court.

Subsequently, Karnan wrote to the joint registrar of the Right to Information section, alleging irregularities in the appointment of district judges.

[12] In late 2015, he wrote a letter to Justice Kaul saying he was going on a long leave because of the ‘dummy cases’ he was being allotted.