2 weeks ago
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The Supreme Court connected Friday (May 14, 2026) acceptable speech a Delhi High Court bid granting bail and suspending the condemnation of erstwhile BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar successful the 2017 Unnao rape case.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked the High Court to determine the question of suspension of condemnation of Sengar afresh, preferably earlier the onset of the summertime abrogation of the courts successful June.
The tribunal had initially ordered that the High Court would yet perceive and determine Sengar’s entreaty against his condemnation arsenic aboriginal arsenic imaginable oregon wrong 2 months, and if that was not possible, past see the plea for suspension of sentence.
However, apical tribunal altered the bid connected a submission made by elder advocator N. Hariharan that the tribunal ought to see the plea for suspension of condemnation archetypal and foremost. Mr. Hariharan voiced scepticism astir getting an aboriginal determination connected the appeal, saying helium had already argued it “five times” without hardly immoderate advancement made.
The tribunal said the High Court indispensable perceive each the parties, including the counsel for the subsister of the crime, connected the question of suspension of sentence.
Refraining from making immoderate comments connected the merits of the lawsuit against Sengar, the Bench said a determination connected the plea for suspension of condemnation indispensable beryllium taken by the High Court without being influenced by its earlier bid connected the issue.
The apex tribunal had stayed the cognition of the earlier High Court bid suspending the situation condemnation and granting bail to the expelled BJP person successful December past year.
The prosecution mentation had been that the survivor, past a minor, was sexually assaulted astatine the erstwhile MLAs’s residence successful 2017 connected the mendacious pretext of providing her with a job. The CBI, which probed the case, had sought justness for the survivor, saying “we are answerable to the kid who was lone 15 years aged erstwhile this gruesome transgression happened to her”.
Mr. Hariharan submitted successful the apex tribunal that the subsister was not a insignificant astatine the time.
The Supreme Court had pointedly referred to the “unique circumstances” of the case, including the information that Sengar was separately recovered blameworthy of the custodial decease of the survivor’s father.
The apical tribunal had antecedently decided to analyse the larger question of instrumentality of wherefore Sengar had not been charged with ‘aggravated intersexual battle by a nationalist servant’ punished with beingness imprisonment nether Section 5(c) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
In fact, Sengar had antecedently won alleviation from the High Court connected the crushed that an MLA cannot beryllium classified arsenic a ‘public servant’ oregon successful a ascendant position, which would person enactment his transgression successful the much grievous class of ‘aggravated intersexual assault’.
Justice Bagchi orally observed that the High Court had adopted a “hyper-technical approach”.
