New Delhi: A Delhi court has sentenced Sukesh Chandrasekhar to eight years’ rigorous imprisonment for impersonating a Supreme Court judge and his secretary to influence judicial proceedings related to his bail, holding that his conduct amounted to an attack on the integrity of the judicial process.
Noting that Chandrasekhar was involved in around 30 criminal cases, Chief Judicial Magistrate Harshita Mishra awarded two years’ rigorous imprisonment each for impersonating and threatening a public servant, and four years for criminal intimidation. The case relates to an incident on April 28, 2017, when Chandrasekhar, while in police custody in a separate corruption case, used constable Manjeet’s phone to call Poonam Chaudhary, then a special judge hearing Prevention of Corruption Act cases, on her official landline and mobile phone.
Posing first as the private secretary of a Supreme Court judge and later as the judge himself, he sought immediate bail and threatened her with “serious professional repercussions” if she did not comply. The court held that the offence went beyond ordinary deception and that Chandrasekhar “deliberately manufactured the identity of a Judge of the highest Constitutional Court of the land for the purpose of influencing a judicial proceeding”, amounting to institutional sacrilege. Rejecting the contention, the court termed it an “ordinary and natural human response”, reflecting an “unwillingness to acknowledge the gravity” of his conduct. Stressing the need for deterrence, the court said that “the cost of attacking the institution of justice is neither uncertain nor inconsequential”.
The court ordered the sentences to run consecutively. Chaudhary later verified the calls with Supreme Court Registry and was informed that no such call had been made and that the person claiming to be the judge’s secretary did not work in the office. It also noted the absence of genuine remorse. The defence, the court observed, sought to discredit the complainant judicial officer by alleging police collusion and a false FIR, and even portrayed her act of returning a call from an unknown number as suspicious. Chandrasekhar will receive set-off for the period already spent in custody.