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Rape case: Supreme Court asks Chinmayanand to surrender
The Supreme Court on Monday directed former Union minister Chinmayanand Saraswati to surrender by the end of this month and face trial in a 2019 rape case.
The Supreme Court on Monday directed former Union minister Chinmayanand Saraswati to surrender by the end of this month and face trial in a 2019 rape case.
The court upheld two consecutive judicial orders that blocked the Uttar Pradesh government’s move to close the case against the spiritual leader-turned-politician
“Magistrate was right in rejecting the application for withdrawal of the case,” said a bench of justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath. “The high court was doubly right in upholding it.”
The accused, who is a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and served as a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led Union government, has been booked under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The case was registered based on a complaint of rape filed against the leader by a law student enrolled in the LLB course in a Shahjahanpur college run by the foundation established by Chinmayanand.
The accused leader was aggrieved by the Allahabad high court order on September 30 refusing to permit an application moved by the public prosecutor seeking withdrawal of the criminal case against the BJP leader. The application moved under Section 321 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was earlier dismissed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate court in Shahjahanpur.
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the 75-year-old leader, told the Supreme Court that the accused was advanced in age and claimed that the victim had not objected to this application.
The top court, while refusing to allow the appeal, said, “We are not entitled to entertain the appeal. We clarify that the observations of the high court were made in the context of withdrawal of prosecution and will not weigh with the court during trial.”
Considering his old age, the court allowed him time to surrender by November 30.
Earlier, the Allahabad high court had said, “In our criminal dispensation system, we cannot afford to pick and choose depending upon the caste, creed, religion, political affiliation, financial capacity, etc. The application of law should be one and uniform to all top to bottom.”
The high court further held that the grounds for withdrawal of case under Section 321 require that the application is made in good faith and in the interest of public tranquility and justice. In the present case, the HC held these grounds were not made out and directed the accused to surrender by October 30.
