Greeva Garg –
The Supreme Court on June 18 adjourned the hearing of rape convict Asaram Bapu’s bail plea till the reopening of the Court after the summer vacation.
A Bench of the Apex Court, headed by Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice MR Shah posted the hearing of the matter after the summer vacation.
Asaram Bapu filed the plea seeking the temporary suspension of sentence to pursue medical treatment at Prakash Deep Institute of Ayurveda, located between Haridwar and Rishikesh in Uttarakhand.
When Asaram was hospitalised last month, he filed a bail petition in the Rajasthan High Court expressing his desire to pursue Ayurvedic in Uttarakhand.
Subsequently, after the dismissal of the plea in the Rajasthan High Court, Asaram moved to the Supreme Court seeking interim bail.
The Rajasthan Government has dismissed Asaram’s bail plea. The State Government stated that, Asaram wants to change the venue of his custody in the guise of seeking Ayurvedic treatment because his earlier rounds of a petition for bail for allopathic treatment were unsuccessful.
In a hearing at the Rajasthan High Court, Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra, representing Asaram said that “I am here for interim bail. I am an 83-year-old man serving a life term and there has been a history of medical ailments”. “Give him two months’ time to recuperate. This is the limited relief which I am seeking. Today he needs holistic treatment”.
Facing jail terms from 2018, when a Jodhpur Court awarded life imprisonment to Asaram after declaring him guilty for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in 2013.
Asaram Bapu was penalised under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. He was also convicted for a 2002 rape case.