A Tamil Nadu advocate, who had been imprisoned for well over a month for his alleged improper behaviour with a woman during the virtual hearing of a case before a single judge at the Madras High Court in December last year, has got the relief of release from prison.
A division bench of Justices P N Prakash and A A Nakkiran came to his rescue by imposing two weeks' imprisonment for his erotic act and after adjusting the number of days he had already spent in prison, ordered his immediate release. It, however, levied a fine of Rs. 6,000 on him.
The bench had already directed the advocate, R D Santhanakrishnan, to pay a compensation of Rs 4 lakh to the woman, with whom he was seen and videographed during the hearing.
The video purportedly showed the lawyer in an intimate posture with the woman, while a judge was hearing a case through video-conferencing on December 20. it had gone viral and created a flutter then. And a portfolio judge P N Prakash, shocked over the incident, suo-motu took cognizance of it and initiated contempt proceedings.
Following directions from the judge, the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry suspended Santhanakrishnan from practising on December 21. The CB CID arrested and remanded him in judicial custody on January 21. After taking into consideration the fact that he was imprisoned for well over 30 days, a single judge on February 28 had granted him bail.
When the contempt petition came up today, the bench imposed the punishment of two weeks jail term and the fine.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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