SC transfers all 5 Unnao cases from UP to Delhi

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday transferred the trial in of all the five cases relating to the Unnao gangrape, which has put both the Uttar Pradesh government and the BJP in the dock, and in which BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar is the main accused, from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi.

The fifth case, in which the victim girl and her lawyer were critically injured in a road accident in UP and which is still under investigation, will also be tried by a special CBI court in Delhi.

Transferring the trial of all five cases to a Delhi court, a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, said the trial of all five cases will be conducted by the same special CBI court judge. The trial, the bench ordered, will be on a day-to-day basis and be completed within 45 days from its commencement. The court appointed Delhi’s Tis Hazari court district judge Dharmesh Sharma to conduct the trials.

On the shifting of the victim and her lawyer, who are both in critical condition on ventilator support, the court left it to the family members of both the victim and that of the lawyers to take a call on shifting the two for advanced treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

In a report that was sought by the court earlier in the morning, doctors at Lucknow’s King George Medical University said both the victim and the lawyers were medically “fit for being airlifted out of Lucknow for more advanced medical treatment”. However, the doctors said such movement of patients was not needed as the King George Medical University was “fully equipped to treat the patients”.

Chief Justice Gogoi had sought the opinion of the doctors while weighing the option of shifting them to AIIMS by air ambulance.

Awarding Rs 25 lakhs as interim compensation to the victim girl by the Uttar Pradesh government, CJI Gogoi ordered that protection would be provided to the victim, her lawyer, and family members, including her mother, four siblings and others, by the Central Reserve Police Force.

“The compensation will be paid to the mother of the victim by tomorrow (2.8.2019)”, the court ordered.

Passing the ex-parte order shifting the trial from Lucknow to Delhi, the court said the investigation into the case involving the accident in which victim, her lawyer were critically injured and two other including her aunt were killed must be completed and the chargesheet filed in seven days.

The court, however, left scope for a further increase in the time limit by another seven days, making it clear that the investigation had be completed in 15 days and the chargesheet filed.

“However, if any further time is required, the investigating authority need not revert to the court, but may avail of further time of one week, which extension should be construed as an exception. In other words, in any circumstance, the investigation will be completed within a fortnight from today, preferably within seven days”, said the order.

The court was informed that victim’s father was falsely implicated in an Arms Act case. Now the police officer involved has been named as an accused.

The victim’s father, who died in policy custody, was badly beaten up by some people ostensibly connected with the accused before being taken into custody. Noting that it was a ex parte order given the peculiar “facts and the circumstance” of the case, CJI Gogoi in the order said that the accused could move the court for vacation, modification or alteration of the order.