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 court ordered the sentences to run consecutively.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.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.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.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.Rejecting the contention, the court termed it an “ordinary and natural human response”, reflecting an “unwillingness to acknowledge the gravity” of his conduct.Rejecting the argument that the failed attempt reduced the seriousness of the offence, the court observed: “The fact that the attempted manipulation did not succeed does not retrospectively make the act of impersonation innocuous.”Flagging emerging technological threats, it warned: “The contemporary technological environment makes such attempts… particularly insidious.” Artificial intelligence, the court said, could enable cloned voices, fabricated video calls and spoofed communications purporting to emanate from judges.The court also rejected the plea for rehabilitation. “Rehabilitation and reformation cannot be peddled and accepted as a formulaic plea capable of neutralising every aggravating circumstance,” it said. It further noted that Chandrasekhar’s alleged slander of the judicial officer showed “no remorse for his mendacious actions” and that he continued to tread the “road to perdition”.“A person who, despite being confronted with the consequences of his actions, continues to attribute mala fides to the victim and seeks to undermine her credibility rather than demonstrate any realisation of wrongdoing, cannot readily claim the mitigating consideration of genuine remorse,” added Mishra.Stressing the need for deterrence, the court said that “the cost of attacking the institution of justice is neither uncertain nor inconsequential”. Chandrasekhar will receive set-off for the period already spent in custody.
