Tis Hazari Court in Delhi on Friday sentenced the expelled BJP MLA from Unnao, Kuldeep Sengar, to life imprisonment and asked him to pay Rs 25 Lakh as an exemplary fine in the 2017 Unnao rape case.
While awarding the fine, court said that out of this Rs 25 lakh, Rs 10 lakh would be paid as compensation to the mother of the victim and Rs 15 lakh to the prosecution.
Declining the plea for a lenient approach, the court said, “This court does not find any mitigating circumstance. Sengar was a public servant and betrayed people’s faith.”
“He is a public servant and there is a betrayal of faith that people put in him. All possible coercive measures were taken to harm and silence the victim,” Sessions Judge Dharmesh Sharma said.
“Girl and her family have already been provided with home for one year. Thereafter, I am asking CBI to assess the threat measures and all possible efforts to protect her and provide her a shelter after the current shelter lapses,” the court said.
On Monday, the court had convicted Sengar for the rape of a woman in 2017 when she was a minor saying that the victim’s testimony was truthful and unblemished against a powerful person.
However, the court had acquitted co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges in the case.
Sengar was convicted under the Indian Penal Code and POCSO Act for the offence of a public servant committing penetrative sexual assault against a child.
After taking the cognizance of the gruesome case, the Supreme Court ordered the transferring of day-to-day hearing of case from Lucknow to New Delhi in August. The apex court’s move came after a letter to the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi by the rape victim.
The apex court directed the Delhi Court to hold a trial on a daily basis and complete it in 45 days.
The case which reflected the political power of Sengar in Unnao is of 2017 when he allegedly kidnapped and raped raped a minor girl.
Sengar’s brutality was not restricted to the victim but it also affected her family members as her father was allegedly framed in an illegal arms case and arrested on April 3, 2018. He died in judicial custody a few days later on April 9.
Later on July 28, a car in which the victim along with her aunts and the lawyer who was handling her case was hit y a truck killing her two aunts and leaving the lawyer and the victim injured.
Her family alleged foul play in the incident. The local court had framed murder charges against Sengar, his brother Atul Sengar and nine others in the case.
The court on August 9 had framed charges against Sengar and co-accused Shashi Singh under Sections 120b (criminal conspiracy), 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping or inducing a woman to compel for marriage), 376 (rape) of the IPC and other relevant sections of POCSO Act.
(With inputs from agencies)