New Dehli, March 27: A court in Uttar
Pradesh on Friday acquitted former Union Minister and BJP MP Swami Chinmayanand
in a rape case on the ground that prosecution failed to prove the case against
Chinmayanand of keeping a law student in his captivity at Shahjahanpur
allegedly to rape her.
The BJP leader was charged with
keeping a law student and repeatedly raping her. The special court ruled that
since prosecution could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, the judge
PK Rai said he was acquitting Chinmayanand of the charges.
The court took note of the fact that
victim student too had turned hostile during the course of the trial in the
case against Chinmayanand
The court also acquitted the
law student and other co-accused Sanjay Singh, DPS Rathore, Vikram Singh,
Sachin Singh and Ajeet Singh of the charges of trying to extort money from the
BJP leader due to lack of evidence. The accused and others were present in when
judge ordered the acquittal.
On August 27, 2019 a case against
Chinmayanand was lodged at Kotwali police station in Shahjahanpur on a
complaint filed by the victim student's father, who had said that her daughter
was pursuing LLM in a college that was owned by Chinmayanand's ashram and was
living in a hostel there.
The father said the student’s mobile
phone was switched off since August 23 adding he found through her Facebook
account that she had been threatened by Chinmayanand and his accomplices of
physical harassment and rape, besides dire consequences.
The father of victim had also feared
threat to her life as the phone of Chinmayanand was constantly switched off
whenever he called him. Chinmayanad was arrested in the case on September 20,
2019, and sent to jail.
An advocate Om Singh later, filed a
complaint at the same police station against the law student and her friends
accusing them of demanding Rupees Five crores as extortion for the accused.
The police investigated the case and a charge-sheet against him was filed on November 4, 2019 under section 376-C of the IPC, an offence pertaining to the abuse of one's position by a person in authority to "induce or seduce" a woman under his charge to have "sexual intercourse, not amounting to rape" besides other sections.