Judge who found Kuldeep Sengar guilty had some piercing queries for CBI too
The court also pulled up the CBI for calling the survivor to its office for recording her statements and said the investigating agency was not following the manual related to investigation and prosecution.
A Delhi court which convicted expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar on Monday for raping a teenager in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 also rapped the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the knuckles for the delay in filing a charge sheet in the case and the insensitivity in conducting the probe.
The court also pulled up the CBI for calling the survivor to its office for recording her statements and said the investigating agency was not following the manual related to investigation and prosecution.
“.....It appears that somewhere the investigation in the instant case has not been fair qua victim of crime and her family members. The investigation has not been conducted by a woman officer as mandated by Section 24 of the POCSO Act and successive statements of the victim girl ‘AS’ had been recorded by calling her at the CBI office without bothering for the kind of harassment, anguish and re-victimization that occurs to a victim of sexual assault in such case,” district judge Dharmesh Kumar said in his verdict.
WATCH | Unnao rape case: MLA Kuldeep Sengar convicted by Delhi court; CBI pulled up
The court expressed unhappiness over the CBI’s delay in filing a charge sheet in the rape case and said it prolonged trial against Sengar and others.
“The CBI has not explained the fact that when the investigation in the alleged kidnapping, illegal confinement and gang rape of the victim girl ‘AS’ in FIR No. 316/17 PS Makhi had been taken over by them on 13.04.2018 and it is also clear from the police report that almost entire investigation had been completed by the end of July 2018, what prevented the CBI from not filing the charge sheet/final report without any further delay and it was filed belatedly on 02.10.2019 after almost a year,” the judge said.
While convicting Sengar, the court said the victim’s testimony was “truthful and unblemished” against a “powerful person”. The Uttar Pradesh lawmaker was convicted for rape under Indian Penal Code and POCSO Act. The woman was 17 years old when she was assaulted in 2017.
