The Delhi High Court on Tuesday suspended the life sentence of expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar during the pendency of his appeal against his conviction in the Unnao rape case, reported Live Law.
A bench of Justices Subramonium Prasad and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar also granted bail to Sengar. The court directed him not to travel within a five-kilometre radius of the complainant’s home and to remain in Delhi while on bail, Bar and Bench reported.
The court told him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 15 lakh with three sureties of the same amount, and to report to the police every Monday at 10 am.
In December 2019, Sengar was convicted and sentenced to life for raping a woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao in 2017. She was a minor at the time.
In March 2020, Kuldeep Singh Sengar and his brother Jaideep Singh Sengar, among others, were sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for the killing of the woman’s father in judicial custody.
While sentencing Sengar to life imprisonment in 2019, the trial court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to take adequate steps to ensure that the life and liberty of the complainant are protected.
The woman and her family had been placed under the protection of the Central Reserve Police Force after an order from the Supreme Court in 2019. The court had noted at the time that there was a threat to the lives of the complainant, her mother and her lawyer, among other persons.
This came after the woman and her lawyer were severely injured in a car crash. Her family had alleged that Sengar was behind the accident. Two of the woman’s relatives, one of whom was a witness in the rape case, were killed.
In 2024, the Centre had moved a plea against the CRPF security cover provided to the complainant and her family, claiming that they no longer needed the security detail.
In March, the Supreme Court refused to revoke the security cover provided to the complainant, citing continued concerns of threats to her safety.
The top court, however, directed that the security cover for the woman’s family members and other witnesses in the case be revoked.
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