Opinion | Why Supreme Court’s Stay On Kuldeep Sengar’s Bail Matters To Every Indian |
On December 29, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India stayed the Delhi High Court’s controversial order that had suspended the life imprisonment of expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar and granted him bail while his appeal against conviction in the 2017 Unnao rape case was pending. In doing so, the apex court ensured that Sengar remains behind bars—a decision that resonates far beyond the legal technicalities of bail, and strikes at the core of India’s faith in its justice system.
The case itself is grim in its facts and damning in its consequences. Sengar was convicted in December 2019 for kidnapping and raping a minor, and later also found guilty in the custodial death of the survivor’s father—a loss that devastated a family already scarred by violence. Yet, on December 23, a division bench of the Delhi High Court chose to suspend his sentence, triggering public uproar and deep anguish from the survivor and her supporters.
At the heart of the Supreme Court’s intervention was a fundamental question of statutory interpretation that goes to the heart of equality before the law. If, as the high court suggested, a patwari or a constable qualifies as a “public servant" under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences........