NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Delhi HC order granting Kuldeep Singh Sengar bail in the Unnao rape case, in which he has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.A bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice AG Masih, while challenging the suspension of sentence of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape case, asked Sengar to file response in four weeks and posted the matter for hearing in last week of January.“But here, the situation is peculiar since he is inside the jail for another case,” he added.This comes after the Central Bureau of Investigation moved the top court after Delhi high court suspended Sengar’s life sentence in the rape case.Representing the central probing agency, solicitor general Tushar Mehta requested the apex court to stay HC order claiming that the incident is a “very horrific case.”“This is a horrific case of rape of a child. Charges were framed under Section 376 IPC and Sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act,” he said.“Conviction is on two counts. I have quoted all relevant parts. Para 3 of my note has conviction order. There is a finding recorded which says the child was less than 16 and was 15 years 10 months. Against this conviction, appeal is pending,” he added.Mehta further argued that Sengar was a public servant at the time of incident, pleading for minumum 20 years of covicting.“Public servant is not defined in Pocso act by reference. Whatever defined in IPC will be the definition. Every word used in any statute is not mechanically getting definition public servant would mean a person who is in a dominant position over child,” he said.A division bench comprising of Justice Subramonium Prasad and Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar while pronouncing the order noted that Sengar had already served seven years and five months in prison.The court ordered that the suspension will remain in force while his appeal against conviction is pending. While the high court granted him bail in the rape case, he will continue to remain in jail as he is serving a separate 10-year sentence in a CBI case related to the custodial death of the survivor’s father. His appeal in that case, along with a plea seeking suspension of sentence, is also pending.The high court imposed several conditions while granting bail, including a personal bond of Rs 15 lakh with three sureties, a direction not to enter a 5-km radius of the survivor’s residence in Delhi, and a strict bar on threatening her or her mother.In December 2019, ex BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar was sentenced to life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 25 lakh.
