Unnao Rape Case: Supreme Court Denies Bail to Kuldeep Sengar

Kuldeep Sengar, the convicted rapist, whose sentence was suspended by the Delhi High Court recently pending appeal, will not be getting bail. On December 29, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court stayed the High Court order.

The Sengar case was particularly horrific in what the 17-year-old minor had to endure after she made a complaint in 2017 against Sengar accusing him of rape. The police of Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, where the crime happened, refused to even register an FIR because Sengar was a powerful local politician belonging then to the Bharatiya Janata Party (subsequently he was expelled from the party). In 2018, she tried to immolate herself before the chief minister's office. After that her father was killed in police custody by Sengar's relatives. The case became national news, and the Central Bureau of Investigation took it over leading to his arrest.

But the ordeal of the victim wasn’t over. In 2019, a truck rammed into a car injuring her and her lawyer. Two aunts accompanying them were killed. The Supreme Court shifted the trial to Delhi and in December that year Sengar was convicted of rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. The next year he was also convicted for culpable homicide for the death of the victim's father. He got a sentence of 10 years for that.

The case slipped out of public consciousness until on December 23, the Delhi High Court suspended his sentence for the rape case. It said in its order that the police's inability to protect the victims cannot be a reason for denying bail to Sengar. The order immediately drew public agitation with the possibility of Sengar once again trying to silence the victim looming large.

The CBI challenged the bail, and the Supreme Court has now stayed it.