Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the convicted politician in the notorious Unnao rape case, has surrendered to Tihar Jail after his interim medical bail concluded, his counsel informed the Delhi High Court on Monday. The return to incarceration came as an AIIMS surgeon scheduled to perform Sengar’s eye surgery was unavailable until January 30.
Sengar, who is serving a life sentence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, had been granted temporary release to undergo cataract surgery. However, the procedure could not proceed as planned due to the surgeon’s unavailability. His lawyer indicated plans to reapply for medical bail on January 28 or 29 to facilitate the required medical treatment.
Justices Yashwant Varma and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar of the Delhi High Court took note of these developments as they prepared to hear Sengar’s appeal against his conviction next month. The court had initially granted Sengar a short medical leave from prison, stipulating a mandatory return by January 27, post-discharge from the hospital. They also specified that should the surgery not occur on January 24, Sengar was to surrender the same evening.
The legal battles surrounding Sengar extend beyond the rape case. He faces additional charges related to the custodial death of the rape survivor’s father, with a plea to suspend his ten-year sentence pending before another bench. In December 2024, he was granted a two-week interim bail for health reasons, which was later extended by another month. However, further extensions were denied when the court noted that the application for extension was not provided to the rape survivor, which led to objections from the survivor’s counsel citing continuous threats to the survivor and her family from the accused.
The case against Sengar has been fraught with controversies and legal complexities since the minor survivor was allegedly kidnapped and raped by the then-BJP leader in 2017. Following intense public outcry and media scrutiny, the case was transferred from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi by the Supreme Court’s directive in August 2019 to ensure a fair trial.
