Shahjahanpur Rape Case 2011 | UP Court Acquits Former Union Minister Swami Chinmayanand As 'Victim' Turned Hostile

An MP/MLA court in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur district on Thursday acquitted former Union Minister and BJP leader Chinmayanand in connection with a rape case lodged against him in the year 2011. The decision came after the court noted that the victim had turned hostile.

The Addl. District & Sessions Judge Judge Ahasan Husain has also directed that a case be registered against the victim for giving "false evidence" against Swami.

The case against Swami

Swami Chinmayanand was booked in this case after a woman, who had spent 11 years at his ashram, accused him of committing rape against her. As per the allegations, Saraswati established a physical relationship with her perforce after administering some intoxicants to her food.

Allegedly, Swami also took obscene audio-visual videos and porn photographs, and during this process, she was impregnated twice and for the first time at Bareilly and for the second time at Lucknow, she was got aborted. Not only this, when she was pregnant, she was assaulted mercilessly by the applicant's goons.

However, in the year 2018, the UP Government decided to withdraw from prosecution and granted permission to the Public Prosecutor to move an application under Section 321 CrPC, which was rejected by the trial court and later on, the order of the trial court was upheld by the HC.

In its order, the Court had also slammed the Uttar Pradesh Government for its decision to withdraw a case against Saraswati as it remarked that the District Magistrate, Shahjahanpur had failed to spell out even a single good reason for the withdrawal of the prosecution against the accused. Despite filing appeals in both the High Court and the Supreme Court, the 77-year-old Chinmayanand failed to secure any relief.

However, in February 2023, he was granted anticipatory bail in the case from the Allahabad High Court.