The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Sengar and other convicts on a plea filed by the Unnao rape survivor seeking enhancement of their 10-year sentence to death penalty in the custodial death case of her father.
A division bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja issued notice on the survivor’s application for condonation of a delay of more than 1,940 days in filing the appeal against the 2020 trial court judgment on conviction and sentence. The bench observed that the question of maintainability of the appeal would have to be decided first.
In her appeal, the survivor has sought modification of the trial court’s finding from culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 of the IPC to murder under Section 302 IPC, and has prayed that Sengar and the other convicts be awarded the death sentence.
The counsel for the CBI informed the court that the principal contesting parties in the appeal were Sengar and the co-convicts and that the agency had no objection to the plea.
The High Court noted that on February 9 the Supreme Court had directed it to hear, on an out-of-turn basis, Sengar’s appeal challenging his conviction in the custodial death case and to decide it within three months. The apex court had also asked the High Court to consider the survivor’s appeal seeking enhancement of the sentence.
Sengar was earlier convicted on December 20, 2019 for the rape of the minor survivor and sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of his life.
In the custodial death case, the survivor’s father had been arrested under the Arms Act allegedly at the behest of the accused and died in custody on April 9, 2018 due to police brutality.
On March 13, 2020, a trial court in Delhi convicted Sengar and his brother Jaideep Sengar alias Atul Singh, among others, and sentenced them to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of ₹10 lakh. While observing that “no leniency” could be shown for the killing of a family’s “sole bread earner”, the trial court held that there was no intention to kill and convicted the accused under Section 304 IPC for culpable homicide not amounting to murder rather than under Section 302 IPC.
The custodial death case had been transferred from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi on August 1, 2019 on the directions of the Supreme Court.
The High Court will now first consider whether the survivor’s delayed appeal seeking enhancement of the sentence is maintainable before proceeding further in the matter.
