Supreme Court to hear bail plea of Asaram Bapu today
Today , the Supreme court is going to hear the bail application of self styled Asaram Bapu who was convicted in a rape case.
The bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M.R. Shah will take up the matter today.
The Supreme Court , on June 4, had issued notice on a petition filed by Asaram, challenging a Rajasthan High Court order, dismissing his plea for temporary suspension of sentence to avail ayurvedic medical treatment.The State of Rajasthan has submitted that Asaram, under the garb of his medical treatment, desires to get his sentence suspended. He has made two attempts of this kind earlier also, in 2014 and 2016 and during both times, the Apex Court had created a committee of Doctors, which had found that Asaram’s heath condition was stable and not critical that it would require any surgical management of the disease.On June 7, the state of Rajasthan had filed its reply against the plea of Asaram. The bench of Justice Navin Sinha and Justice Ajay Rastogi had on June 8 adjourned the matter, saying that the reply was filed yesterday evening and they didn’t get the time to read it.The bench had further asked Asaram’s Counsel to file his counter affidavit till Friday.The spiritual guru, who claims to have millions of followers worldwide, has been given a life sentence for raping a 16-year-old girl. Asaram was arrested in 2013 after a case of sexual assault was filed against him by two of his followers, who alleged that he had assaulted their daughter.Police said that the couple, who had sent the girl to one of his ashrams for spiritual lessons, were summoned to see her as she was “under the influence of some supernatural ghostly powers”.
Two Surat-based sisters hadalso lodged separate complaints against Asaram and his son Narayan Sai accusing them of rape and illegal confinement among other charges. The bail plea filed by Asaram Bapu got dismissed as 210 people were yet to get examined.The bench also said that The lower court will proceed with the trial and will not be influenced by the prima facie observations given by the Gujarat High Court earlier while dismissing Asaram's plea.