New Delhi: Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the expelled BJP MLA who was convicted of raping a minor girl in Unnao in 2017, was discharged by a Delhi court on Monday, December 20 in a case in which he was accused of masterminding a road accident which had threatened the survivor’s life, Bar and Bench reported.While hearing the case, additional chief metropolitan magistrate Ravindra Kumar Pandey noted that no charges could be framed against him since there was no prima facie evidence on the record.On July 28, 2019, a car carrying the survivor, her lawyer and two of her aunts was rammed by a truck which had had its licence plate scrubbed out, while on its way to Rae Bareli. While the survivor and her lawyer were in critical condition following the collision, both her aunts died on the spot. While Sengar was in judicial custody at the time of the incident, the victim’s family accused him of pulling the strings due to his considerable influence in the region.Following the incident, the UP police had filed murder charges against Sengar and nine others before handing the case over to the CBI. The CBI investigation had found no evidence of criminal conspiracy among Sengar, the owner of the truck or the driver.In December, 2019, Sengar was found guilty of raping the woman (who was a minor when the incident took place in 2017), sentenced to life imprisonment and made to pay a fine of Rs 25 lakh. He was charged under IPC Section 376 (2) (rape by a public servant) as well as under similar sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. While the punishment for rape under POCSO were amended to afford the death penalty to the perpetrator, these amendments were not in place in 2017.Also read: Unnao Case Timeline: A Trajectory Of Prolonged SufferingSubsequently, on March 4, 2020, Sengar, was convicted of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the death of the victim’s father, who died in judicial custody in April, 2018 after being beaten by Sengar’s brother, Atul Singh and several accomplices. At the time, the police had, in fact, arrested the victim’s father and remanded him to judicial custody rather than take him to a hospital and thus, he succumbed to the injuries from the beating.In the present case, the Tis Hazari court had taken cognisance of the criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation charges against Sengar on July 31, 2021 and had remanded the case to the Rouse Avenue Courts.While the court on Monday could not find any evidence on the record linking Sengar to the traffic collision and thus, dismissed the charges against him, it did find a prima facie case against the driver of the truck under IPC Sections 304 (a) (causing death by negligence), 338 (causing grievous hurt through an act endangering the life or personal safety of others) and 279 (rash driving).The charges of criminal conspiracy were dropped from the four other accused as well, who were still charged with IPC Section 506 (criminal intimidation causing death or grievous hurt), read with Section 34 (common intent).