INTRODUCTION
The Tis Hazari Courts in Delhi have made it clear that impersonating a constitutional authority to subvert a judicial proceeding will attract the maximum rigour of the law, sentencing self-styled “conman” Sukesh Chandrasekhar to eight years of rigorous imprisonment for posing as a sitting Supreme Court judge to influence his own bail hearing. In a detailed sentencing order dated August 29, Chief Judicial Magistrate Harshita Mishra directed that the terms imposed under three separate sections of the Indian Penal Code run consecutively rather than concurrently, terming the conduct an act of “institutional sacrilege” that struck at the sanctity of the judicial process itself.
BACKGROUND
The offence dates back to April 2017, when Chandrasekhar was in police custody in connection with a separate corruption case. According to the prosecution, he gained access to a police constable’s mobile phone and used it to contact the official landline and mobile number of judicial officer Poonam Chaudhary, who was then presiding over his case. He first introduced himself as the secretary to a Supreme Court judge before proceeding to impersonate the judge directly, adopting a regional accent associated with a sitting judge from South India to lend the deception credibility. The calls were aimed squarely at securing bail through intimidation rather than legal process. The episode forms only one strand of a far wider pattern of deception attributed to Chandrasekhar over the years. He remains an accused in a separate Rs 200-crore extortion and money-laundering case, in which he allegedly impersonated Union government officials to extort funds from the family of a jailed pharmaceutical promoter, and is said to have run a bribery network inside Delhi’s prisons, paying jail officials monthly sums running into lakhs of rupees to secure privileges and unauthorised phone access. That matter, which drew in several Bollywood personalities as witnesses, remains under separate investigation and is unconnected to the present conviction.
KEY POINTS
- The prosecution case, registered as State v. Sukesh Chander Shekhar @ Sukesh (Cr. Case No. 5409/2018) depended upon the prosecution establishing that the impersonation was a wilful act to obstruct the course of justice and not an unintentional lapse.
- The principal evidence supporting the impersonation charge consisted of call recordings tracing the April 2017 conversations through a constable’s phone, as well as testimony from judicial officer Poonam Chaudhary.
- The defence argued that as the deception was not successful in obtaining bail, this should be treated as a mitigating factor. The court rejected this outright, holding that an unsuccessful attempt does not diminish the seriousness of the underlying conduct.
- Chandrasekhar was found guilty under Section 170 IPC/ 204 BNS (impersonation of public servant), Section 189 IPC / 224 BNS (threat of injury to public servant) and Section 507 IPC / 351(4) BNS (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication).
- The court imposed two years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5,000 each under Sections 170 and 189, and four years’ rigorous imprisonment under Section 507, with an additional month’s imprisonment in default of payment of the fine.
- Directing that the three substantive sentences run consecutively rather than concurrently, the court fixed the aggregate term at eight years, while granting Chandrasekhar the benefit of the period already undergone in custody.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
The sentencing hearing followed swiftly after the August 20 conviction, with CJM Mishra noting that Chandrasekhar’s counsel had been given a week to argue mitigation but chose instead to press for a same-day hearing without placing any substantive grounds before the court; she observed that the punishment “must necessarily carry a deterrent message,” flagging how deepfakes, cloned voices, and spoofed communications are making impersonation of constitutional authorities an increasingly live and global threat, not a one-off Indian anomaly, and recorded that Chandrasekhar showed no genuine remorse, instead casting suspicion on the complainant judicial officer and allegedly disparaging the court itself as the trial concluded. Since then, the matter has moved to the Delhi High Court, where Chandrasekhar, through advocate Anant Malik, has filed a writ petition under Article 226 seeking to set aside the conviction on grounds of fair trial violations and judicial bias, and to expunge what the plea calls “derogatory, pejorative and stigmatic” remarks, arguing that eight years’ imprisonment for offences carrying a two-year maximum each is a “severe legal anomaly” given the absence of the phone or any call recordings as evidence; before Justice Madhu Jain, counsel clarified he was not pressing against the conviction itself but confining arguments to maintainability, after Delhi Police objected that a writ plea could not lie post-conviction and that the proper remedy was a statutory appeal, with the court listing the question for hearing on November 3, leaving both the conviction and the contested remarks unresolved for now.
CONCLUSION
In State v. Sukesh Chander Shekhar @ Sukesh, the Tis Hazari Courts have reiterated that the impersonation of a constitutional authority to interfere with judicial proceedings is not a mere technical offence but a direct assault on public confidence in the justice system. By imposing consecutive sentences and expressly invoking the deterrent value of the punishment, the court has signalled that institutional credibility cannot be appropriated for personal advantage, however sophisticated the deception. The decision additionally emphasises the judiciary’s increasing alertness to impersonation facilitated by technology, reiterating that the ingenuity of criminals, in the court’s own words, “cannot outrun the penal reach of law.” As the case proceeds before the Delhi High Court, it stands as a marker of how far Indian courts are prepared to go in protecting the sanctity of judicial office.
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WRITTEN BY: HARSHMEET KAUR SUDAN
