SC refuses to entertain Sukesh Chandrasekhar's plea for stay on conviction

New Delhi, The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea filed by alleged conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar seeking a stay on his conviction in a criminal case.

A Delhi court on August 20 convicted Chandrasekhar for impersonating a Supreme Court judge to influence a special judge for bail in a 2017 corruption case. On August 29, the court sentenced him to eight years in jail in this connection.

Chandrasekhar later moved the Delhi High Court challenging the trial court's dismissal of his application seeking a stay on his conviction and sentence pending disposal of his appeal.

The high court on October 16 disposed of his plea, saying no case for staying the conviction order was made out.

"Having considered the submissions, this court is of the view that, since the appeal against the judgment of conviction is already pending, the petitioner's objections to the findings recorded therein, including the adverse observations and expressions used by the trial court, are matters which ought to be examined by the appellate court," the high court had said.

It had left it open to the petitioner to raise all contentions before the appellate court.

Chandrasekhar's plea challenging the high court order came up for hearing before the apex court on Monday.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manmohan refused to entertain the petition.

The Delhi court had sentenced Chandrasekhar to eight years in jail in the impersonation case, terming the act "institutional sacrilege".

It had awarded him two years' rigorous imprisonment each for the offences of impersonating a public servant and intimidating a public servant, and four years for criminal intimidation through anonymous communication.

The court had directed all the substantive sentences to run consecutively, making the total sentence eight years.

The case arose from a phone call made on April 28, 2017, while Chandrasekhar was in police custody in connection with a corruption case.

According to the prosecution, he obtained access to the mobile phone of a police constable and used it to contact the official landline and mobile phone of Poonam Chaudhary, then special judge dealing with cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The trial court had said Chandrasekhar first impersonated the private secretary of an erstwhile Supreme Court judge and later, the judge himself.

It had held that the prosecution had established beyond reasonable doubt that Chandrasekhar had deliberately assumed the identity of a Supreme Court judge to interfere with the administration of justice.

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