The Delhi High Court on Monday declined to suspend the 10-year prison sentence awarded to expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar in connection with the custodial death of the father of the Unnao rape survivor.
Justice Ravinder Dudeja said no grounds were made out for granting relief and dismissed the application seeking suspension of the sentence. The court observed that although Sengar has undergone a long period of incarceration, relief could not be granted solely on the basis of delay, noting that part of the delay was due to multiple applications filed by him during the pendency of his appeal.
The judge said the ends of justice would be better served by hearing the appeal at the earliest and listed the matter for further hearing on February 3.
On March 13, 2020, a trial court sentenced Sengar to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 10 lakh in the case related to the death of the survivor’s father while in custody. The court had said that no leniency could be shown in the killing of a family’s sole breadwinner.
The trial court had also handed down 10-year jail terms to Sengar’s brother Atul Singh Sengar and five other accused for their role in the custodial death. The survivor’s father was arrested under the Arms Act at Sengar’s instance and died in custody on April 9, 2018, due to alleged police brutality.
Sengar was convicted of kidnapping and raping the minor survivor in 2017. In the custodial death case, the trial court did not convict the accused for murder under the Indian Penal Code but imposed the maximum punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304, after holding that there was no intention to kill.
Sengar’s appeals against his conviction in the rape case, in which he was sentenced in December 2019 to imprisonment for the remainder of his life, as well as in the custodial death case, are pending before the High Court. His sentence in the rape case was suspended by the High Court on December 23, 2025, but the Supreme Court stayed that suspension on December 29, 2025.
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