Asaram Bapu moves Gujarat High Court against rape conviction; seeks suspension of sentence

Controversial godman, Asaram Bapu has moved the Gujarat High Court seeking to suspend the life sentence imposed upon him by a court in the State for repeatedly raping a female disciple. [Ashumal @ Asharam Thaumal Sindhi (Harpalani) vs State of Gujarat].In an application, filed through advocate Ashish Dagli, the controversial godman pointed out that an appeal challenging his conviction in the rape case has already been filed before the High Court.As such, he has urged that the High Court suspend his jail sentence for the time-being, since the appeal may not be heard in the near future and since he has a full chance of succeeding in the appeal.The application also asserted that the entire case of the prosecution against him appears to be "fake, fabricated, concocted" and an after-thought of the prosecutrix.He contended that the case is a well-planned conspiracy hatched by the prosecution witnesses, who appear to be somewhat "dissatisfied and unhappy" with the working of his ashram.He also highlighted the delayed filing of the First Information Report (FIR) (after 12 years) to assert that the prosecution witnesses hatched this conspiracy to extort monetary gains 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. .As far as the testimony of the victim about the alleged "forceful sexual intercourse", the application stated that the same is "highly improbable" considering that Asaram's age at the relevant time was 64 years while the victim was 21 years."Therefore, the said version seems to be highly improbable as the victim could easily overthrow the applicant and run away to save herself," the plea stated. .Further, the plea highlighted that Asaram is a senior citizen of 84 years, suffering from age-related ailments who has been behind bars for a long time..The matter was listed for hearing on Tuesday before a division bench of Justices AY Kogje and Hasmukh Suthar, which adjourned the hearing till August 17. .As per the FIR lodged at Chandkheda police station in Ahmedabad, the survivor was allegedly confined by Asaram in his Asharam on the outskirts of Surat city and was raped repeatedly from 2001 to 2006.This is not the first case in which Asaram has been convicted. He is already serving a life sentence in two separate sexual offence cases.He is presently lodged in a jail in Jodhpur since 2018 when he was brought from Indore where he was arrested in 2013.