Taking note of his advanced age and nearly a decade spent in prison, the Gujarat High Court Today (March 15th) has scheduled the commencement of hearings for the appeal filed by self-proclaimed godman Asaram Bapu against his conviction in a 2013 rape case to begin on April 4th.
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Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has opted to commence hearings on the appeal lodged by self-proclaimed spiritual leader Asaram Bapu against his conviction in a 2013 rape case starting from April 4. This decision follows the acknowledgment of his advanced age and nearly ten years spent incarcerated.
Justices AS Supehia and Vimal Vyas, presiding over the case, prioritized the appeal over Bapu’s plea to suspend his prison sentence.
“Having served 10 years in prison and being 85 years old, we will proceed directly to hear the main appeal,”
-remarked Justice Supehia.
The Court clarified that both the main appeal and the plea to suspend the sentence would require a similar amount of time for hearing. Consequently, it decided to commence the hearing of the main appeal from April 4. Additionally, the Court expressed its intent to endeavor to conclude the hearing of the appeal, which encompasses thousands of pages, before the summer recess, aiming to deliver its judgment post-vacation.
In January 2023, a trial court in Gujarat found Asaram Bapu guilty of raping his female disciple at his Surat ashram in 2013. The convictions include various offenses under Sections 376, 377, 354, 346, 120B, and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The survivor alleged that she was confined and assaulted by Asaram between 2001 and 2006, as detailed in the First Information Report (FIR) filed at the Chandkheda police station in Ahmedabad.
This conviction adds to previous life sentences Asaram is serving in two separate cases involving sexual offenses. Since 2018, he has been incarcerated in a Jodhpur jail, following his initial arrest in 2013 in Indore.
In a plea challenging his conviction, Asaram argues that the prosecution’s case against him is fabricated and motivated by personal vendettas from dissatisfied individuals associated with his ashram. He contends that the delayed filing of the FIR, twelve years after the alleged incidents, supports his claim that the case is a concocted scheme aimed at extorting money from him.
“The trial court has erred in appreciating the fact that various witnesses cited by the prosecution appears to be enmity witnesses i.e. the witnesses who were either removed from Ashram due to their ill-conduct or had left Ashram and wanted to extort money from the Ashram,”
-the plea stated.
Further, the plea pointed out that the investigating officer had stated that certain witnesses who testified against Asaram said that they had never seen wrong activities taking place in his ashram, but that they were ready to testify against him if he could be convicted with the help of their statements.
“Most witnesses were thrown out from the Ashram in the year 2004 due to his activities in contravention to the ideology of Ashram and thereafter, they have tried to defame the image of Ashram and also tried to falsely implicate the applicant in false cases,”
-the plea stated.
Regarding the victim’s testimony of “forceful sexual intercourse,” Asaram Bapu’s plea argues that such an assertion is “highly improbable” given his age at the time, 64, compared to the victim’s age of 21. The plea suggests that the victim could have easily resisted and fled to ensure her safety, casting doubt on the credibility of the claim.
Click Here to Read Previous Reports on Asaram Bapu
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