A week after self-styled godman Asaram returned to prison in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, after a 17-day parole, the Supreme Court today granted him interim bail on medical grounds. However, Asaram, convicted in a 2013 rape case, will not walk free as he is awaiting interim bail in another rape case.
Asaram, whose birth name is Asumal Sirumalani Harpalani, is 83 years old and has had serious legal issues in the past. He was arrested in 2013 on a rape charge with a schoolgirl in his ashram in Jodhpur, later convicted in another rape case involving a woman in his ashram near Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
A division bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Rajesh Bindal granted him interim bail till March 31, with the condition that he cannot meet his followers after coming out of the jail. It said the police officers would accompany Asaram to the hospital but left it to the police officers’ discretion to decide where he will be treated.
Asaram’s counsel had moved the interim bail plea citing his serious medical conditions. He had gone back to jail on January 1 after his parole that included 15 days for parole and two days for travelling.
Earlier, Asaram underwent treatment in Pune and was also admitted to AIIMS Jodhpur due to heart-related ailments. In 2018, a court in Jodhpur sentenced him to life imprisonment for raping a 16-year-old girl in his ashram, while two others were sentenced to 20 years in prison in the same case. In January 2023, he was convicted again in a rape case of a woman in one of his ashrams.
The Supreme Court had, in the past, sought the Gujarat government’s response on an application by Asaram for suspension of his life imprisonment awarded in a rape case in 2013. It said it would hear the issue if valid medical reasons were shown. His plea for suspension of the sentence was rejected in August by the Gujarat High Court that ruled he failed to show sufficient grounds to grant him relief.
