Custodial death case : HC seeks Sengar’s stand on Unnao rape survivor’s plea

The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the stand of expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Sengar and others on a plea by the Unnao rape survivor for enhancing their 10-year prison term to death sentence in the custodial death case of her father.

A bench of justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja issued notice to Sengar and other convicts on the survivor’s plea seeking condonation of a delay of over 1940 days in filing the appeal against the 2020 trial court order on conviction and sentencing.

The court observed that maintainability of the appeal has to be decided first. In her appeal, the survivor said

Sengar and other convicts should be held guilty under Sections 302 of the IPC for murder and sentenced to death, and the trial court’s decision,

which found them guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, should be modified. The counsel for the CBI said the main contesting parties in the survivor’s appeal were Sengar and others, and the agency as such had no objection.

The bench noted that on February 9, the Supreme Court asked the high court to accord an out-of-turn hearing on Sengar’s appeal challenging his conviction in the custodial death case and said it be decided within three months.

The top court had also asked the high court to decide the survivor’s appeal seeking enhancement of sentence in the present case.

Sengar was convicted of raping the minor survivor and sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of his life on December 20, 2019.

The girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped by Sengar in 2017 when she was a minor.