New Delhi, December 15: The Supreme Court today slapped a six-month sentence on the Chennai-based advocate, S.K. Sundaram, in connection with the controversy over the age of the Chief Justice of India, A.S. Anand.A bench comprising Justice K.T. Thomas and Justice R.P. Sethi found Sundaram to have displayed a ``defiant and mala fide attitude'' in not only sending a threatening telegram to Anand but also lodging a criminal complaint against him.But since Sundaram is a heart patient and has even collapsed during a recent hearing of the case, the court took a ``humanitarian approach'' and suspended the sentence for a month subject to his undertaking that he would not ever again commit or attempt to commit such an act.If Sundaram does file such an undertaking by then, the sentence will remain suspended for a further period of five years.``But if the contemnor commits any act of criminal contempt during the said period of five years, the suspension of the sentence will stand revoked and then he will have to undergo the sentence of imprisonment for six months,'' wrote Thomas in his judgment on behalf of the bench.Sundaram had sent the telegram in question to Anand on November 3 on the basis of a document brought out by former law minister Ram Jethmalani, suggesting that the Chief Justice had reduced his age by two years. The controversy over Anand's age was raised for the first time by Sundaram himself about a decade ago through a public interest litigation, which prompted the then President of India to hold an inquiry into the matter in consultation with the then Chief Justice of India.The court said Sundaram had revived his ``false claim'' about Anand's age despite being aware of the presidential order dated may 16, 1991, which declared that Anand had given his age correctly as November 1, 1936. According to the court, once the age issue was decided by the President, ``it was not open to this contemnor to raise this question over and over again''.The judges also clarified that if Sundaram had stopped with his telegram, ``we would have persuaded ourselves to ignore it as a case of ranting gibberish.''The Supreme Court said it was constrained to take action because Sundaram had followed up his telegram with the lodging of the criminal complaint before a Chennai court in which Anand had been arrayed as an accused on the grounds of having committed offences of cheating, criminal breach of trust and falsification of records.``We realised that he seriously meant to malign and undermine the dignity and authority of this court,'' it said. Telegram travails The court found Sundaram's telegram to have four `biddings':* A command hurled at Anand to step down from the constitutional office* A threat to declare him as an offender for falsifying documents on age* A threat that Sundaram would file a petition for a direction to Anand to pay Rs three crores* A portrial of Anand as a usurper of the post of Chief Justice of India
