ON DECEMBER 29, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices J.K. Maheshwari and A.G. Masih, heard the appeal filed against the Delhi High Court’s (‘HC’) judgment in Kuldeep Singh Sengar v. CBI (2025) by the Central Bureau of Investigation (‘CBI’) and Advocate Anjale Patel.
The HC’s judgement suspended the life sentence of expelled-BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who was convicted by the trial court in the infamous Unnao rape case. It held that a sitting Member of the Legislative Assembly (‘MLA’) does not fall within the definition of a “public servant” under Section 21 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’). On this basis, the HC concluded that Section 5(c) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (‘POCSO Act’), which classifies sexual assault by a public servant as an aggravated offence, was inapplicable. The decision drew sharp criticism from lawyers, senior advocates, politicians, and the survivor’s family, triggering public protests.
While staying the HC’s order, the Supreme Court observed that the appeal raised several substantial questions of law and expressed concern over the exclusion of elected MLAs from the definition of a “public servant.”
In this post, the author examines the Delhi HC’s suspension of sentence through the lens of the Supreme Court’s settled jurisprudence under Section 389 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (‘CrPC’). The HC judgement, it is argued, reflects a perilous turn to judicial formalism, where a hyper-technical reading of Section 21 IPC displaced the post-conviction presumption of guilt and produced a de facto acquittal on the aggravated charge.
