NEW DELHI: The Delhi HC on Thursday sought a response from expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Sengar on a petition filed by the 2017 Unnao rape survivor seeking enhancement of his 10-year sentence to the death penalty in the custodial death case of her father.
A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja also issued notice to Sengar and other convicts on the survivor’s plea seeking condonation of a delay of 1,940 days in filing the appeal against the 2020 trial court verdict on conviction and sentencing. The court observed that the maintainability of the appeal would be decided first.
The appeal urges the court to convict Sengar under Section 302 of the IPC and award him the death penalty. The trial court had earlier convicted Sengar and others for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced them to 10 years’ imprisonment.
The bench noted that on February 9, the SC had directed the high court to grant an out-of-turn hearing on Sengar’s appeal challenging his conviction in the custodial death case and dispose of it within three months. In December, the HC had suspended Sengar’s life sentence in the 2017 Unnao rape case and granted him bail, triggering widespread protests.
The apex court, however, stayed the HC’s order on December 29 last year after the CBI filed a special leave petition challenging the relief granted to Sengar.