Bengaluru, Dec. 26 -- The Delhi High Court's decision to suspend the life sentence of expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the 2017 Unnao rape case has triggered legal and public debate, not just because of the seeming injustice of it all, but because it relies on a technical yet far-reaching question of statutory interpretation: is a legislator a "public servant" under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act. At the heart of the controversy lies the court's prima facie finding that Sengar, despite being an elected MLA at the time of the offence, does not fall within the category of "public servant" under Section 5(c) of Pocso or Section 376(2)(b) of IPC, which provides for the punishment of imprisonment for remainder of his natural life. Relying heavily on the Supreme Court's landmark judgment in AR Antulay (1988), the bench held on Tuesday that while legislators may be treated as public servants under the Prevention of Corruption Act, that definition cannot be automatically imported into Pocso. It ordered Sengar's release pending his appeal, noting that he has already undergone about 7 years and 5 months of imprisonment. The period of his incarceration, it said, exceeded the minimum punishment of seven years that a person can be given under Section 4 of Pocso, prior to the 2019 amendment which enhanced the minimum to 10 years. A public servant has a higher sentence than a person who is not a public servant. If the accused is not a "public servant", the offence falls under Section 4 of Pocso, which prescribes a minimum of 7 years rigorous imprisonment (10 years after the 2019 amendment), extendable to life, instead of the minimum 20 years. Given the gravity of the offence, the statutory purpose of Pocso, and the wider implications of the order for cases involving political power and sexual violence, a close examination of the HC's reasoning is crucial to understand not just what the court held, but also what it consciously declined to do while citing procedural fidelity and doctrinal consistency.P4...