The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain the bail plea of Unnao rape convict and former BJP legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar but asked Delhi High Court to take up his appeal against his 10-year jail term in the custodial death case of the rape survivor’s
father.
Sengar is serving a life sentence for kidnapping and raping a minor girl in 2017.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice N.V. Anjaria refused to concede a plea by Sengar’s counsel Sidharth Dave that he was entitled to bail pending adjudication of his appeal against the sentence in the high court.
Dave contended that Sengar had already served nine years and seven months of his 10-year jail term.
However, the bench said Sengar had served only seven years in jail, and his counsel was factoring in a remission of sentence granted for good behaviour.
“It is highly debatable whether you will be entitled to claim remission in such case of moral turpitude,” the bench observed.
Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the CBI, said Sengar’s appeal would come up for hearing in the high court on February 11, and the apex court could ask the high court to examine his plea “out-of-turn” instead of the bench itself hearing it.
The bench asked the high court to consider Sengar’s plea and decide within three months. It also permitted the victim’s family to approach the high court seeking enhancement of the 10-year sentence imposed on Sengar.
On December 29, the top court stayed the high court order that had suspended Sengar’s life sentence in the rape case and directed his release on a hyper-technical ground that a lawmaker was not a “public servant” under the Pocso Act.
The apex court had found fault with the high court’s reasoning that Sengar was not a “public servant”.