The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed an appeal filed by the Unnao rape survivor who sought the death penalty for former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar and others in connection with the 2018 custodial death of her father. The court refused to condone a delay of 1,945 days in filing the appeal, characterizing the lapse as a case of “deliberate inaction and negligence.”
A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja ruled that the survivor failed to show “sufficient cause” for the delay in challenging the trial court’s March 2020 verdict. The survivor had sought to enhance the 10-year sentences of Kuldeep Sengar, his brother Jaideep Sengar, and several others to the death penalty by upgrading their conviction from culpable homicide to murder.
The High Court noted that the survivor was actively participating in connected legal proceedings and had access to legal advice throughout the period. The bench observed that she “consciously chose not to avail the statutory remedy of appeal within the prescribed period of limitation.”
Regarding the grounds cited for the delay—which included financial constraints, physical debilitation, and threats—the court found them lacking in evidence.
“The grounds urged… do not inspire confidence at the stage of considering the application for condonation of delay. These grounds are vague in nature, unsupported by any documentary material, and do not disclose the period during which such circumstances prevailed,” the court observed.
The bench further emphasized that entertaining such a belated appeal would “seriously prejudice” the rights of the accused, exposing them to the uncertainty of prolonged litigation and harsher penalties years after the trial had concluded.
The case stems from the death of the survivor’s father on April 9, 2018. He had been arrested under the Arms Act, allegedly at the behest of Sengar’s associates, and died in custody due to police brutality.
On March 13, 2020, a trial court sentenced Kuldeep Sengar and his brother Jaideep Sengar to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 of the IPC). While the trial court noted that “no leniency” should be shown for the death of a family’s sole breadwinner, it found no evidence of an “intention to kill,” thus stopping short of a murder conviction under Section 302.
The survivor’s appeal sought to modify this conviction to murder, arguing for the maximum capital punishment.
During the proceedings, Mehmood Pracha, counsel for the survivor, argued that she was living under extremely adverse conditions and that it was a “miracle” she could pursue any legal action at all.
Conversely, senior advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey, representing Jaideep Sengar, and advocate Kanhaiya Singhal, representing Kuldeep Sengar, argued that the delay was an example of “conscious inaction” and that there were no valid grounds to excuse the five-year gap. The CBI informed the court that it had accepted the original 2020 trial court order and left the decision on the delay to the court’s discretion.
Kuldeep Sengar is already serving a life sentence for the 2017 rape of the survivor, a conviction handed down in December 2019.
