New Delhi: Underlining that all undertrials get a fair hearing in Indian courts, the Supreme Court (SC) asked the Delhi High Court Monday to take up former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar’s appeal challenging his conviction and 10-year sentence in the 2017 Unnao rape survivor’s father’s custodial death case—out-of-turn—so that the matter can be decided expeditiously.
A three-judge SC bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant made the request, hearing Sengar’s appeal challenging a recent 19 January HC order rejecting his plea to suspend his sentence and grant him bail.
Sengar’s lawyer, senior advocate Siddharth Dave, informed the SC bench that Sengar had already served over seven years of his actual 10-year sentence in the case. Dave said Senger was entitled to suspension of the sentence, as well as the grant of bail, in consideration of the fact that he had spent a considerable period behind bars.
The top court, though, held a divergent view on the suspension of sentence.
The bench, which also included Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N.V. Anjaria, observed that the case against Sengar for the survivor’s father’s custodial torture and death involved offences of “moral turpitude” while refusing to suspend Sengar’s 10-year sentence.
However, it also acknowledged the need to hold an expeditious trial.
Noting that Sengar’s appeal in the HC was likely to be heard on 11 February, the SC bench said that the same, along with the rape survivor’s family’s appeal asking for the enhancement of Sengar’s sentence in the custodial torture case, would be heard together and fast-tracked. For this, the SC bench gave the survivor’s counsel liberty to mention the matter before the HC.
“Let Delhi High Court take up the appeal within one week, and if the High Court finds that the appeal can be decided along with the appeal by Sengar, then both can be heard and decided together. If that requires a change in the composition of the bench, the same can be done as well,” the apex court said.
Sengar is also facing life imprisonment in the Unnao gangrape case. The HC, on 23 December last year, had suspended the former MLA’s sentence in the gangrape and released him on bail. But six days later, the Supreme Court (SC) stayed the order on an appeal filed by the CBI, the investigating agency.
Alleged to have been arrested at Sengar’s behest, the Unnao rape survivor’s father died in police custody on 9 April 2018. In March 2020, Sengar, along with others, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in this case.
According to the allegations against Sengar in the gang rape, he allegedly kidnapped and raped the minor between 11 June and 20 June 2017, with others. She is then alleged to have been sold for Rs 60,000. The girl, thereafter, was continuously threatened and warned by police officials against speaking out.
Controversy brewed when a lorry without a number plate rammed into a car carrying the survivor and her lawyer. The two were critically injured, and two of her aunts died.
In December 2019, Sengar was convicted in two cases—the rape of the survivor as well as the custodial death of her father. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the rape case and sent to jail for 10 years in the custodial death case.
On Monday, his counsel, Dave, appearing before the SC, pointed out that some co-accused in the custodial death case were on bail and Sengar should also get the same benefit for parity.
Despite spending over nine years in jail—including remission—the period of incarceration was not important, the HC order had said, Dave told the court, placing his objections.
However, the SC bench was of the view that the period of incarceration alone was not the sole criterion for a sentence’s suspension, especially when the appeal was already listed for final hearing.
“Why do we suspend a sentence? Only when we are uncertain about the time that will be taken in deciding the appeal,” the top court observed, adding that once the appeal was listed, the issue of suspension became academic.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)