New Delhi: A Delhi court today heard that ‘godman’ Parthasarathy, accused of sexual assault and fraud, and who the police have been looking for since July, was abroad even when the first FIR was filed against him on 23 July.
The lawyer of Chaitanyananda Saraswati, former chairman and managing director of the Sri Sharada Institute of Indian Management-Research, who has been accused of sexual assault by 17 students, said in court: “Since 19 July, he has not been in India. In his absence, all these FIRs are recorded.”
The court was hearing an anticipatory bail application moved by Chaitanyananda aka Parthasarathy. Dismissing the plea, Additional Sessions Judge Harpreet Kaur observed: “Section 316(5) BNS is also invoked in the present case on finding that applicant/accused got involved in criminal breach of trust. Investigation of the present case is at a nascent stage and IO requires custodial interrogation of applicant/accused to establish the entire chain of fraud, cheating, conspiracy and misappropriation of funds. As per version of IO, applicant/accused is not available at his given address and his mobile phone is switched off.”
ThePrint earlier reported that ‘godman’ Parthasarathy has been booked in three cases in the recent past by the Delhi Police—two on the complaint of the institute management over misappropriation of the properties and sexual assaults against a student, and the third one for forgery and using number plates in the name of “UN” on his high-end car. While the first FIR was filed on 23 July, related to misappropriation of assets, the sexual assault case was lodged on 5 August.
The anticipatory bail applications
The anticipatory bail plea rejected on Friday was the second such plea moved by ‘godman’ Parthasarathy; the first plea was withdrawn due to inadvertently mentioning the names of victims, which violated established procedure. The Supreme Court has banned public display of the names of victims of sexual assaults, including by the media.
Arguing for Parthasarathy, Advocate Ajay Burman submitted that what could at best be a civil dispute was converted into a criminal case based on a “marathon complaint” containing hundreds of paragraphs and 50 documents.
Moreover, he argued that there was no necessity for custodial interrogation of his client, considering all the evidence relied upon by the prosecution was documentary in nature. To this Judge Kaur asked: “If you have all the documents, why don’t you join the investigation?”
Burman also argued that the offences invoked in the FIR require a preliminary enquiry by the police before the case is registered, which was not done in this case.
Burman also argued that ‘godman’ Parthasarathy was executing the decisions based on rights duly conferred on him by the Peetham itself and with their knowledge.
On the other hand, Additional Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed argued that the accused had to be taken to 10 places for investigation and questioned about the over Rs 50 lakh he had withdrawn from the trust’s accounts after the case was registered.
A panel of counsels, representing the complainant, including Kumar Vaibhav, Karan Tarkar, and others, pointed out large-scale forgery of documents, such as passports, PAN cards, and details like names of parents, date and place of birth, to counter the plea for relief from arrest by the Delhi Police.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: ‘Obscene texts, unwanted touch’—Delhi ‘godman’ still at large despite complaint from 17 students