New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Friday challenged the Delhi High Court order suspending the life sentence of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar in the 2017 rape case. The agency moved a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the top court, an agency spokesperson said.
The move, already made public by the agency Wednesday, comes at a time when the relief to Sengar had caused massive uproar among activists. The survivor and her family members too took to the streets in protest.
The Delhi HC had Tuesday suspended the life sentence awarded to Sengar for raping a minor girl from his constituency on the pretext of providing her a job in June 2017. After a series of denials by the Uttar Pradesh Police to register a case, the state government handed the investigation over to the CBI, which booked and arrested Sengar in April 2018.
The agency filed a chargesheet the same year, and a Special CBI court, in December 2019, handed him a life sentence and a fine of Rs 25 lakh.
Hearing his plea for the suspension of life imprisonment, the Delhi HC decided that his case did not fall under Section 5(c) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. It ruled that the punishment of a life sentence till the remainder of his life did not apply in this case.
Since he had already served more than seven years as per the terms of the POCSO Act before the 2019 amendment, the high court ordered his release.
Sengar, a four-term MLA from Unnao district, however, will remain behind bars for the time being on account of the 10-year sentence handed to him in the case of the custodial death of the Unnao rape survivor’s father.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)