Self-styled godman Asaram.
Credit: PTI Photo
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Thursday extended self-styled godman Asaram’s temporary bail by one more month, but made it clear that it would be the “final extension”.
Sentenced to life imprisonment in a 2013 rape case, Asaram (86), is on bail on medical grounds.
The division bench of Justices Ilesh Vora and PM Raval extended Asaram’s temporary bail by one more month. Before the bail granted to him by the court on March 28 expired on June 30, the court had granted him an interim extension till July 7.
During a hearing on Thursday, Asaram’s lawyer sought that the bail be extended for three more months. However, the HC said it would extend the bail for only one more month and that it would be the “final extension”. A detailed order is awaited.
Asaram had approached the high court when the interim bail granted to him by the Supreme Court till March 31 on medical grounds was coming to an end, as the apex court had directed him to do so if he needed any extension.
The division bench of the high court had then delivered a split verdict, after which a third judge to whom the matter was referred granted him three-month temporary bail.
In January 2023, a court in Gandhinagar had sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment after convicting him a rape case. Asaram is also serving life sentence in another case of raping a minor girl at his ashram in Rajasthan in 2013.
In the present case, he was convicted for raping a woman disciple, who hailed from Surat, on several occasions from 2001 to 2006 when she was living at his ashram at Motera near Ahmedabad.
He was convicted under Indian Penal Code sections 376 2 (C) (rape), 377 (unnatural offences), 342 (wrongful detention), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 357 (assault) and 506 (criminal intimidation).