NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Tuesday refused leniency to an advocate, sentencing him to 18 months imprisonment for using abusive language in 2015 to outrage the modesty of a judicial officer in a Delhi courtroom and rejected his plea for reducing the jail term to the six months already undergone, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.The advocate, Sanjay Rathod, pleaded with the partial working day bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Manmohan that he was the sole breadwinner of the family comprising his old parents, wife and two children and that he was remorseful about the incident. The bench said the Delhi HC has already directed the sentences (18 months for outraging a woman’s modesty and three months each for two other challan offences) to run concurrently, thus reducing the total period of incarceration from two years to 18 months. It asked the advocate to surrender within two weeks to serve the remaining period of imprisonment.Justice Manmohan, who was the CJ of Delhi HC prior to appointment as SC judge, said, “In Delhi, women judicial officers comprise nearly 50% of the working strength of judges in trial courts. If their dignity is not protected, it will create an unsafe atmosphere in the courtroom”.
