The Supreme Court on Friday (May 14, 2026) set aside a Delhi High Court order granting bail and suspending the sentence of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the 2017 Unnao rape case.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked the High Court to decide the question of suspension of sentence of Sengar afresh, preferably before the onset of the summer vacation of the courts in June.
The court had initially ordered that the High Court would finally hear and decide Sengar’s appeal against his conviction as early as possible or within two months, and if that was not possible, then consider the plea for suspension of sentence.
However, top court altered the order on a submission made by senior advocate N. Hariharan that the court ought to consider the plea for suspension of sentence first and foremost. Mr. Hariharan voiced scepticism about getting an early decision on the appeal, saying he had already argued it “five times” without hardly any progress made.
The court said the High Court must hear all the parties, including the counsel for the survivor of the crime, on the question of suspension of sentence.
Refraining from making any comments on the merits of the case against Sengar, the Bench said a decision on the plea for suspension of sentence must be taken by the High Court without being influenced by its earlier order on the issue.
The apex court had stayed the operation of the earlier High Court order suspending the prison sentence and granting bail to the expelled BJP leader in December last year.
The prosecution version had been that the survivor, then a minor, was sexually assaulted at the former MLAs’s residence in 2017 on the false pretext of providing her with a job. The CBI, which probed the case, had sought justice for the survivor, saying “we are answerable to the child who was only 15 years old when this gruesome crime happened to her”.
Mr. Hariharan submitted in the apex court that the survivor was not a minor at the time.
The Supreme Court had pointedly referred to the “unique circumstances” of the case, including the fact that Sengar was separately found guilty of the custodial death of the survivor’s father.
The top court had previously decided to examine the larger question of law of why Sengar had not been charged with ‘aggravated sexual assault by a public servant’ punished with life imprisonment under Section 5(c) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
In fact, Sengar had previously won relief from the High Court on the ground that an MLA cannot be classified as a ‘public servant’ or in a dominant position, which would have put his crime in the more grievous category of ‘aggravated sexual assault’.
Justice Bagchi orally observed that the High Court had adopted a “hyper-technical approach”.