Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday set aside the Delhi High Court order that had suspended the life sentence awarded to former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the 2017 Unnao rape case. The apex court had earlier stayed the High Court order on an appeal filed by the CBI, reported ANI.A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the High Court to hear the matter afresh within two months and clarified that the case should be decided without being influenced by the Supreme Court’s decision to set aside the earlier order. They also asked HC to reconsider issues including whether the former MLA could be treated as a public servant for prosecution under the POCSO Act.Earlier, on April 22, the Delhi High Court had dismissed the Unnao rape survivor’s plea seeking the death penalty for the former MLA in connection with her father’s custodial death case.A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja had observed that the survivor had failed to show “sufficient cause” for condoning a delay of 1,945 days, or more than five years, in filing an appeal against the sentence awarded by the trial court.The bench termed the “unexplained” delay as a case of “deliberate inaction and negligence”.
