Delhi High Court seeks Kuldeep Sengar’s stand on Unnao rape survivor’s plea in custodial death case

The Delhi High Court on Thursday (February 19, 2026) sought the stand of expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Sengar and others on a plea by the Unnao rape survivor for enhancing their 10-year prison term to a death sentence in the custodial death case of her father.

A Bench of justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja issued notice to Sengar and other convicts on the survivor’s plea seeking condonation of a delay of over 1940 days in filing the appeal against the 2020 trial court order on conviction and sentencing.

The court observed that maintainability of the appeal has to be decided first.

Also Read | Unnao rape case: a timeline

In her appeal, the survivor said Sengar and other convicts should be held guilty under Sections 302 of the IPC for murder and sentenced to death, and the trial court’s decision, which found them guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, should be modified.

The counsel for the CBI said the main contesting parties in the survivor’s appeal were Sengar and others, and the agency as such had no objection.

The Bench noted that on February 9, the Supreme Court asked the High Court to accord an out-of-turn hearing on Sengar’s appeal challenging his conviction in the custodial death case and said it be decided within three months.

The top court had also asked the high court to decide the survivor’s appeal seeking enhancement of sentence in the present case.

Sengar was convicted of raping the minor survivor and sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of his life on December 20, 2019.

The girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped by Sengar in 2017 when she was a minor.

On March 13, 2020, Sengar along with his brother Jaideep Sengar alias Atul Singh was sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment by the trial court, which also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh, in the custodial death case of the rape survivor’s father.

The girl’s father was arrested at the alleged behest of the accused under the Arms Act and died in custody on April 9, 2018, owing to police brutality.

The trial court had said “no leniency” could be shown for killing a family’s “sole bread earner”.

The trial court, however, did not hold the accused guilty of murder under the IPC and awarded the maximum sentence of 10 years for the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder to the convicts under section 304 of the IPC after holding that there was no intention to kill.

The case was transferred to Delhi from the trial court in Uttar Pradesh on the directions of the Supreme Court on August 1, 2019.