New Delhi: A court has convicted Sukesh Chandrasekhar of attempting to interfere with the judicial process by impersonating a Supreme Court judge and his secretary, and pressuring special judge Poonam Chaudhary to grant him immediate release while he was in police custody in a corruption case.Chief judicial magistrate Harshita Mishra called it an “absurd theatrical production”, observing, “There are cases which test the law. There are cases which test the evidence. And then there are cases which test the limits of human audacity and mendacity.” Sukesh was convicted of impersonating and threatening a public servant, and criminal intimidation through anonymous communication.The case arose from an April 28, 2017, incident when Sukesh used constable Manjeet’s phone to call special judge Chaudhary. Impersonating a Supreme Court judge and his secretary, he sought immediate bail and threatened her with “serious professional repercussions” if she did not comply with.Chaudhary contacted Supreme Court and spoke to the actual private secretary of the judge concerned. She was informed that no such call was made and the person named as the judge’s secretary did not work in the office.The court said Sukesh’s conduct went beyond cheating, describing it as an attempt to undermine judicial independence and the sanctity of judicial proceedings. Cases are decided on the basis of law and evidence, and “not upon private communications, pressure, deception or impersonation”, it underlined.Calling out Sukesh’s tactics, the court said, “Orders are passed in courtrooms, not dictated over clandestine telephone calls. Judicial discretion is exercised on the basis of the judicial record, not on the basis of the caller’s designation.”Reflecting on the modus operandi, the court said Sukesh’s previous success in deceiving private individuals appeared to have led him to miscalculate when he targeted the judiciary. “He forgot that impersonating a bureaucrat or a political broker is a transactional crime born of greed, but impersonating a Supreme Court judge or his secretary is an act of institutional defiance.”He had overestimated himself, the court said, observing that the judiciary does not negotiate its authority with “shadow callers”. “In attempting to flex non-existent judicial muscles from behind a phone screen, he overplayed his hand so completely that he collapsed his own house of cards,” it said. “Justice cannot be entered through the backdoor of impersonation, intimidation or manufactured authority.“Warning of wider consequences, the court said such tactics, if successful, could create an “invisible parallel judicial system” operating through telephones and instructions. Calling the act “institutional sacrilege”, the court said Sukesh had attempted to “convert the temple of justice into a marketplace of covert influence”. It concluded, “The robes of a judge are not a costume to be assumed by scamsters, nor is the judicial process a playground for transactional fraud.”The court relied on electronic records and witness testimony to decide the case. Noting investigative lapses, including the failure to recover the mobile phone or seize CCTV footage, the court criticised Delhi Police’s “indifferent approach” to the investigation. However, it found the evidence sufficient to establish an “unbroken chain of proof”.The court also directed the commissioner of Delhi Police or the deputy commissioner of police concerned to re-examine the constable’s role and determine whether fresh departmental or criminal proceedings were warranted.
