A Delhi court has sentenced conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar to eight years in jail for impersonating a Supreme Court judge during a bail proceeding, describing the offence as a serious attack on the integrity of the judicial process.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Harshita Mishra awarded Chandrasekhar two years of rigorous imprisonment each for impersonating a public servant and intimidating a public servant. He was also sentenced to four years for criminal intimidation through anonymous communication.
The court directed the substantive sentences to run consecutively, taking the total punishment to eight years.
Court calls offence an attack on justice
In an order dated August 29, the court said the manner in which the offences were deliberately and deceptively carried out warranted a punishment reflecting their impact on the rule of law and administration of justice.
The court had convicted Chandrasekhar on August 20 under Sections 170, 189 and 507 of the Indian Penal Code.
The case was described as particularly serious because the impersonation was allegedly intended to influence a judicial proceeding.
‘Institutional sacrilege’, court says
The court said the offence was qualitatively different from ordinary cases of impersonation because it targeted the judiciary, one of the foundational pillars of a democratic state.
According to the order, Chandrasekhar had deliberately created the identity of a judge of the country’s highest constitutional court to influence a judicial proceeding.
The court termed the act “institutional sacrilege” and a “direct affront” to the independence and sanctity of the judicial process.
It also described the case as “profoundly disturbing”, stressing that the conduct went beyond impersonation and struck at the functioning and credibility of the justice system.
The eight-year sentence marks a significant punishment for the alleged attempt to manipulate a judicial proceeding by falsely assuming the identity of a Supreme Court judge.