The Delhi High Court on December 22 asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to respond to expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s plea seeking interim bail in a case in which he is serving life term for raping a minor girl in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao in 2017.
A Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta and Justice Poonam A. Bamba asked the investigating agency to file a status report after Sengar sought suspension of his sentence on account of his daughter’s wedding ceremony. The High Court has listed the case for further hearing on January 16.
The counsel appearing for Sengar told the court that while the marriage will take place on February 8 next year, a ceremony related to it will be held in January.
Sengar, whose appeal challenging the trial court’s verdict in the Unnao rape case is already pending in the High Court, has sought interim bail for two months to attend the ceremonies which would begin on January 18.
In his pending plea, Sengar has sought quashing of the December 16, 2019 judgment of the trial court here which convicted him. He has also sought setting aside of the December 20, 22019 order sentencing him to imprisonment till remainder of his life. Sengar has claimed that he has been wrongly convicted.
The trial court had awarded him the maximum punishment of life term with a rider that the convict will remain in jail for “remainder of his natural biological life” and also imposed an exemplary fine of ₹25 lakh on him to be paid within a month.
The victim was kidnapped and raped by Sengar in 2017 when she was a minor. The trial of the case was transferred from Unnao to a court in Delhi on the Supreme Court’s directions.
