New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday asked the Delhi High Court to accord an out-of-turn hearing to expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s plea challenging his conviction in the custodial death case of the Unnao rape survivor’s father, and said it should be decided within three months.
While refusing to entertain Sengar’s plea challenging a January 19 order of the high court, a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N V Anjaria said the appeal, if any, filed by the victim’s family should also be heard by the high court along with Sengar’s petition.
The bench was hearing Sengar’s plea challenging the high court’s order that had refused to suspend his 10-year jail term in the case.
During the hearing, the CJI expressed disapproval over the victim’s counsel giving statements in the media about the case. “We are not sitting in an ivory tower. We know a media trial is going on outside,” Justice Kant said, adding he would not tolerate any “parallel trial” outside the court.
The bench was informed that Sengar’s appeal is slated to come up for hearing before the high court February 11.
On March 13, 2020, Sengar was sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment by a trial court, along with a fine of Rs 10 lakh, in the case. The trial court had said “no leniency” could be shown for killing a family’s “sole bread earner”.
The rape survivor’s father was arrested at the behest of Sengar under the Arms Act and died in custody April 9, 2018, owing to police brutalities. Sengar had kidnapped the minor and raped her in 2017.
The trial court did not hold the accused guilty of murder under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the father’s death case, but awarded the maximum sentence for the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 of the IPC after holding that there was no intention to kill.
Sengar’s appeals in the main rape case against the December 2019 judgement sentencing him to imprisonment for the remainder of his life, as well as in the case involving the death of the survivor’s father, are pending in the high court.
His sentence was suspended by the high court December 23, 2025, till the pendency of his appeal challenging his conviction and sentence in the rape case. The apex court stayed the suspension December 29.
