Around 11 am on Monday, a doctor accused in a 14-year-old murder case walked into the courtroom of Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Shefali Barnala Tandon of Tis Hazari Court.
Proceedings were underway, before the court staff noticed something fishy and told the judge — the accused, Dr Chander Vibhas, had thrown some rice on the floor under the dais.
When he was questioned by the court, Vibhas said he had some rice grains in his hands that had fallen. However, he failed to explain why his hands were full of rice in the first place.
The court staff told the judge that this wasn’t an isolated incident and that on August 2, too, some grains of rice were found on the floor of the court.
The accused told the judge he had appeared via video conferencing on August 2. The court reader immediately opened the order sheet and caught his lie — he was, in fact, present in court.
The counsel in the room were reportedly “spooked”, suspecting “black magic”, and requested the court to get the rice cleaned up.
For close to 15 minutes, court proceedings were halted. It resumed after the floor was cleaned.
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In her order dated August 11, ASJ Tandon said, “This is very shocking and surprising to the court that the present accused, Dr Chander Vibhas, who is stated to be a surgeon by profession and belonging to the educated and elite class, has acted in such an unreasonable manner and created an interruption in court proceedings.”
The court also took cognizance of the offence under Section 267 of the BNS (intentional insult or interruption to a public servant sitting in judicial proceeding) against the accused.
“Disrespect towards the court or disruption of judicial proceedings sends a damaging public message and such overt act/behaviour of the accused today not only disrupted court proceedings and undermined the judicial process, but also threatens the very foundation of our legal system,” the judge added.
Following this, the accused knelt before the court to apologise. Judge Tandon said she would wait for his counsel before passing the final order.
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In the afternoon, advocate Sonam Gupta, who represented the accused, appeared before the court. She said the accused was feeling remorse and such an act wouldn’t be repeated in the future. The doctor had been “misguided” by someone, she submitted.
“After considering all the facts and circumstances, including the apology tendered by the accused and his feeling of remorse, he is sentenced to undergo imprisonment till rising of the Court and fine of Rs 2,000 to be deposited with the State,” the Judge said in her order.
