Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

Why were bail pleas of former minister, law student rejected?

- Saurabh Chauhan Saurabh.chauhan@htlive.com

LUCKNOW: The Special Investigat­ion Team’s (SIT) submission­s that all evidences in the rape case against Swami Chinmayana­nd and the extortion case against the law student were verified by Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) ensured that both the accused remained behind bars.

On Monday, bail applicatio­ns of former BJP minister Swami Chinmayana­nd and the law student who accused him of rape were declined by district judge (Shahjahanp­ur), Ram Babu Sharma.

The court heard Chinmayana­nd’s bail plea going by the cause list. His lawyer Om Singh urged the court to grant bail while the SIT’s counsel (government lawyer) Anuj Kumar Singh contended that the evidences against Chinmayana­nd had been verified by the forensic lab. Singh told the court that the woman, in her statement before judicial magistrate, alleged that Chinmayana­nd tore her clothes if she refused to accept Chinmayana­nd’s demands.” The prosecutio­n quoted statements of four

witnesses to support the law student’s allegation­s.

The court was informed that SIT had evidences to support the woman’s claim as well as the link between her and Chinmayana­nd. “The woman and Chinmayana­nd talked to each other for at least six hours from June 1 to August 30 this year, as 230 calls were exchanged between them,” the SIT submitted before the court.

WHAT WENT AGAINST THE WOMAN?

The woman’s lawyer Anup Trivedi contended that she was falsely implicated by Chinmayana­nd. He said neither she uploaded any obscene video nor was she linked with any extortion message.

The woman had no criminal record and the others arrested in the extortion case also had not admitted to any allegation, said the lawyer.

However, the SIT submitted, “The woman was with the three accused held earlier for attempt of extortion when that message was sent. We have the call records to support the argument.”

The Special Investigat­ion Team also submitted that the woman, along with her aides, was planning extortion for the last eight months.

As per the Special Investigat­ion Team, the woman and Chinmayana­nd exchanged 230 calls and talked for six hours in three months before August 30. During the same period, the woman exchanged 4,200 calls with a co-accused Sanjay in the extortion case.

The SIT added that the driver of the car in which the woman and her aides travelled testified her involvemen­t in the case before the judicial magistrate.

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