Chinmayanand Case: After Denial of Bail, Law Student to Move HC

A district judge had on Monday rejected bail pleas of Chinmayanand and the girl.

Swami Chinmayanand has been accused of rape by a law student. 

(Photo: The Quint) 

A day after a local court dismissed the bail application of the law student who had accused former Union minister Chinmayanand of rape, her father on Tuesday, 1 October, said that they would move the high court against the order.

"The District Judge has rejected the bail of my daughter and now we will move a bail application in the high court," her father told reporters in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur.

He said they had written to Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi for help.

"My daughter is a victim. Injustice has been done to her and she has been put in the jail. Now I have got information through our sources that our opponents could try to frame us in fake cases so that we withdraw from this fight for justice," he alleged, adding that they had written to the Congress leader for help three days ago.

The girl's father said though he did not want to indulge in any kind of politics, but they were forced to seek help from the Gandhi family.

Chinmayanand Discharged From Hospital

District Judge Rambabu Sharma had on Monday rejected bail pleas of Chinmayanand and the girl.

Later on Monday, Chinmayanand was also discharged from the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow.

The bulletin issued by the hospital said, "Swami Chinmayanand was discharged today (Monday) from the cardiology ward of the SGPGI at 6:30 pm." When contacted, Chief Medical Superintendent of the SGPGI, Dr Amit Agarwal, confirmed the development. "He (Chinmayanand) has been discharged from the hospital," the official told PTI.

The two were sent to 14-day-judicial custody after being arrested in cases that now run parallel.

Law Student Wanted to Argue Her Own Case

The former Union minister had been booked under section 376C, a charge short of rape, on the basis of a complaint filed by the 23-year-old woman who studied at a college run by his ashram.

The woman herself was charged with extortion, following a complaint by Chinmayanand's lawyer that she and three others were blackmailing the 72-year-old politician and demanding money from him.

"District judge Rambabu Sharma heard the bail application of Swami Chinmayanand, and also the bail plea of the girl in the extortion case. The court dismissed both the bail applications," government counsel Anuj Kumar Singh had told PTI on Monday.

In a letter sent to the court through the jail superintendent, the law student had also said she wanted to appear in person and argue her own case. The judge turned down this plea.

Law student's advocate Anoop Trivedi claimed that the prosecution counsel, while arguing against the bail sought by Chinmayanand, told the court that the politician had used force against the woman while getting himself massaged by her.

Trivedi said if force was used, Section 376 (punishment for rape) of the Indian Penal Code should have been slapped against Chinmayanand.

Instead, he was booked under section 376C, which is usually applied when someone abuses his position to "induce or seduce" a woman under his charge to have “sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape”.