The Delhi high court on Monday dismissed expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s plea seeking suspension of sentence in a case related to the custodial death of the Unnao rape victim’s father.
The father was thrashed by Sengar’s aide in 2018, when the former had gone with his co-workers in Unnao to attend a hearing in the rape case. He was later arrested for allegedly possessing illegal arms and succumbed to multiple injuries suffered in police custody.
A bench of Justice Ravinder Dudeja observed that although Sengar had already undergone 7.5 years of imprisonment and his appeal against the March 2020 trial court order convicting him and sentencing him to 10 years could not be taken up for a considerable period, the delay was attributable to him alone.
The court noted that the matter was repeatedly deferred as Sengar filed multiple applications, including those seeking extension of interim bail and regular suspension of sentence. “The court is conscious of the fact that the appellant has suffered long incarceration of 7.5 years, and the appeal could not be heard since after dismissal of the previous application, but reasons for such delay in hearing the appeal partly was that the appellant filed multiple applications for interim suspension, extension of interim bail, and regular suspension of sentence,” the bench said.
“The purpose would be served if the appeal is heard on the merits. In totality of the facts and circumstances after considering the statutory framework, judicial principles governing suspension of sentence and antecedents of the appellant, the application seeking suspension of sentence is dismissed,” the court said in its verdict, a detailed copy of which is awaited.
A court in March 2020 convicted seven people, including Sengar, his brother, Jaideep Singh Sengar, and policemen Ashok Singh Bhadauria and KP Singh, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304), criminal conspiracy (120B), wrongful restraint (341), and voluntarily causing hurt (323) of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act. The policemen were also convicted for registering a false complaint against the father and assaulting him in judicial custody and were awarded a 10-year sentence. The trial court said “no leniency” could be shown for killing a family’s “sole bread earner”.
The Supreme Court on December 29 stayed the Delhi high court’s December 23 order suspending Sengar’s sentence in the rape case. In his petition before the high court, Sengar claimed that he had though undergone over seven years of sentence. Sengar’s appeal against the March 2020 ruling would be heard on April 3.
