Chinmayanand’s judicial custody extended till October 16

The Shahjahanpur court on Thursday extended former union minister Swami Chinmayanand’s judicial custody till October 16. The court will hear the plea of the special investigation team (SIT) seeking accused persons’ custody on Friday. The SIT had moved an application to take the accused to Lucknow for voice sampling.

Chinmayanand was produced before the court through video conferencing on Thursday evening. Earlier on September 30, the district court had refused him bail, observing the offence as ‘grave’ in nature.

After ensuring that Chinmayanand, who is accused of sexual assault and the complainant woman who is accused of attempt to extort money, do not get bail, the SIT filed an application in the court seeking custody of all five accused (Chinmayanand, the woman and three others), to take them to Lucknow for voice sampling. The court will hear the matter on Friday when counsels of the accused are expected to oppose the request.

WHY SIT WANTS THEIR CUSTODY

Earlier, the SIT submitted before the district court that it had to gather more information from the electronic evidence in both cases. Some video clips surfaced during the investigations which were made the case property, besides the 64-GB pen drive given by the woman. In the videos that also went viral, there are some ‘obscene conversations’ allegedly between the woman and Chinmayanand.

Another video that surfaced during the probe features the woman along with four people in a car allegedly talking about the extortion message that Chinmayanand got on August 22. This video was shot by the driver Anoop, who later reportedly confirmed the woman’s involvement in the extortion case.

An official requesting anonymity said, “The voice sampling is a must for the case. The court will hear the application and if it permits, accused Chinmayanand, woman, Sachin, Sanjay and Vikram will be taken to Lucknow for the test.”

Vikram and Sachin, meanwhile, have filed a plea for bail at the Shahjahanpur court, hearing of which will take place on October 10.

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BID TO CONVINCE COURT

On September 30, the Chinmayanand did not give up easily. While pleading for bail before the district court Shahjahanpur, he submitted that as minister of state for home affairs during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime, he played an important role to end the Bodo agitation and ensured the surrender of 2, 600 Bodo militants, reads the court order.

His lawyer told the court that Chinmayanand played an active role during the Ram temple movement. His counsel also informed the court about the social work done by Chinmayanand in Shahjahanpur. An advocate, pleading for one of the parties, said Chinmayanand’s lawyer submitted that he took an Ayurvedic massage on the advice of a doctor.