Conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar gets 8 years in jail for impersonating SC judge; moves Delhi HC | Today’s news
A city court has sentenced alleged fraudster Sukesh Chandrasekhar to eight years in prison for impersonating a Supreme Court judge in an attempt to influence a special judge to grant bail in a 2017 corruption case, The New Indian Express reported.
According to a news outlet, Chandrasekhar was given a two-year jail term each for impersonating a public official (Section 170 of the Indian Penal Code) and threatening to cause bodily harm (Section 187). For the crime of intimidation, he was sentenced to another four years in prison (Section 507 IPC).
The trial court detailed that Chandrasekhar first posed as the private secretary of the then Supreme Court judge and later as the judge himself.
He stated that the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that Chandrasekhar had deliberately assumed the identity of a Supreme Court judge to interfere with the administration of justice.
On August 20, Chief Magistrate Harshita Mishra of Delhi’s Tis Hazari court, after passing the order, described his crime as a “direct affront” to the independence and sanctity of the judicial process.
It said the sentence “must necessarily carry a deterrent message” to ensure that calculated crime, particularly against the administration of justice, has consequences commensurate with its seriousness.
The judge also emphasized that the case is qualitatively different from ordinary fraud or impersonation. The alleged conduct, she noted, sought to undermine judicial independence by using the power of the country’s highest court to influence another judicial officer.
“One can enter the courtroom through its door, but justice cannot be entered through the back door of impersonation, intimidation or imagined authority. That is exactly the back door the accused tried to enter the trial. The evidence closed that door,” Justice Mishra said.
Chandrasekhar will be entitled to the benefit of the time already spent in custody.
what is it about
The case arose out of a phone call on April 28, 2017, when Chandrasekhar was in police custody in connection with a corruption case.
According to the prosecution, he gained access to police constable Manjeet’s mobile phone and used it to contact the official landline and mobile phone of Poonam Chaudhary, the then special judge handling Prevention of Corruption Act cases.
Sukesh moves Delhi HC
Sukesh Chandrasekhar had filed a petition in the Delhi High Court against the trial court’s decision convicting him, seeking deletion of “defamatory, pejorative, stigmatizing and unnecessary remarks” about his character in the judgment.
He said in his lawsuit that the trial court repeatedly characterized him in terms that are “completely unnecessary for decision-making.”
Chandrasekhar argued that the trial court’s judgment was against the fundamental requirement that a case must be judged on the basis of evidence and not on the alleged nature of the accused.
The trial court approached the case with “predetermined and adverse bias” and denied him an opportunity to supplement the defense’s evidence, the plea says.
