CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday issued a notice to the CBI while admitting separate pleas filed by the Dera Sacha Sauda chief challenging his 20-year sentence in rape case and that of the two victims seeking life imprisonment for Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. A division bench directed Ram Rahim’s counsel to deposit Rs 30 lakh as fine, which was imposed by the special CBI court on Ram Rahim, with a bank within two months. The money is to be paid to the rape survivors.
However, his counsels told the court that he has “renounced the world” and is not in a position to pay the Rs 30 lakh fine imposed by the trial court.“The HC has directed us to deposit fine with a bank in the shape of FDR through the court within two months. If our appeal is finalised in our favour, then we will get back money with interest,” said S K Garg Narwana, counsel for Dera chief.The revision petition filed by rape victims for enhancing the sentence to life imprisonment for Dera chief has been admitted along with the latter’s appeal (challenging the conviction). Both the pleas will now be heard together.
The jailed Dera chief had moved the high court on September 25, challenging the order of the special CBI Court of Panchkula which had sentenced him to 20-year imprisonment for raping two disciples on several grounds including the agency’s failure to conduct his potency test. He had claimed before the trial court that he was not virile since 1990, much before allegations of rape were leveled against him.
In the appeal before the high court Narwana submitted, the prosecution did not get the medical examination of the accused-appellant done to prove that he was capable of performing sexually. The trial court’s findings that the claim about his incapacity after 1990 is not substantiated because of his two daughters is totally erroneous. The court has presumed that because he is father of two children, therefore his plea was not correct without ascertaining the age of his two children, especially when the plea of accused-appellant recorded under Section 313 is after a year.”Delay of more than six years in recording the statements of the women victims by the CBI after the incident was another ground taken by Ram Rahim in his plea.