E-Paper
At CBI’s request, Supreme Court halts transfer of Unnao car crash case to Delhi
The Supreme Court’s unusual directive came on a request by the CBI which sought its help to get custody of the Uttar Pradesh lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar and others to question them for the car crash that had killed the Unnao teenager’s two relatives.
The Supreme Court on Friday halted implementation of its order to transfer the Unnao rape survivor’s car crash case to Delhi after the Central Bureau of Investigation told the judges that it had complicated the agency’s efforts for custodial interrogation of the expelled BJP legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar and other accused.
The top court’s unusual directive came on a request by the CBI which sought its help to get custody of the Uttar Pradesh lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar and others to question them for the car crash that had killed the teenager’s two relatives.
The 19-year-old survivor and her lawyer are battling for life in a Lucknow hospital.
The CBI, which was Thursday given a seven-day deadline to probe the car crash, had approached a Lucknow court to seek the influential lawmaker’s custody. But the UP judge turned them back, pointing to the Supreme Court’s orders to transfer the trial to Delhi, an official at the federal investigating agency said.
Watch: Unnao rape: Tragic timeline of how a woman was let down by the system
Also read| Lawyer wrote to authorities about threats: Unnao rape survivor’s relative
A bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi decided to keep its order transferring the road accident in abeyance for two weeks because of the problems that the agency was facing. The Lucknow court would be authorised to pass relevant orders, the top court ruled on Friday.
Yesterday, the judges had ordered the transfer to Delhi all five cases linked to the 2017 Unnao gang-rape, in which legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar is the main accused, and ruled that the trials be completed within 45 days of commencement. The court gave the agency a week to decide if the car crash was an accident or a murder conspiracy as alleged by the family of the rape survivor.
Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who has kept a low profile in Sitapur district jail after his arrest, returned to the headlines following Sunday’s road crash, in which a speeding truck smashed into a car carrying the woman, her lawyer and aunts in Rae Bareli .The survivor’s family accused him of engineering the crash, after which the case was handed over to the CBI, which booked him, his brother Manjoj Singh and eight others on charges of murder, attempted murder, criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation.
The rape accusation hit headlines after the survivor attempted self-immolation in front of the house of Adityanath on April 8, 2018, following which Sengar was arrested. Her father died in judicial custody where he was sent for alleged illegal possession of arms — the family alleged he had been framed — after suffering severe injuries in an assault blamed on Sengar’s brother and his men.
