SIT files 4,700-page chargesheet in Chinmayanand case

The Special Investigation Team has filed a 4,700-page chargesheet and case diary in the sexual harassment allegations against former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand and a related extortion case in the court of chief judicial magistrate Omveer Singh on Wednesday. During the probe, the SIT recorded statements of 105 people and collected 24 physical and 55 documentary evidence.

Shahjahanpur: The Special Investigation Team probing sexual harassment allegations against former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand and a related extortion case filed a voluminous charge sheet on Wednesday in the two cases in a court here.

"The SIT has filed a 4,700-page charge sheet and case diary in the court of chief judicial magistrate Omveer Singh," Chinmayanand's lawyer Om Singh told media.

"We will study the charge sheet and the mobile call detail record," the lawyer said.

During the probe, the SIT recorded statements of 105 people and collected 24 physical and 55 documentary evidence.

The contents of the chargesheet were not immediately available as the probe team has to file a final report in form of an affidavit in a sealed cover in the Allahabad High Court on November 28.

Chinmayanand is lodged in the jail following the case lodged against him by the law student under section 376C of the IPC, an offence pertaining to the abuse of one's position by a person in authority to "induce or seduce" a woman under his charge to have "sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape".

The four accused in the extortion case are the woman law student who had charged Chinmayanand with sexual harassment, Sanjay, Vikram and Sachin. All of them are in jail.

IG-rank officer Naveen Arora, who is heading the SIT, had said on Tuesday that BJP leaders DPS Rathore and Ajit Singh have also been made accused in the extortion case.

Chinmayamand, the law student, and some others were also brought to the court on Wednesday after the chargesheet was filed.

The law student and her three male friends were booked under sections 35 (criminal act done with a criminal knowledge or intention), 385 (extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation), 201 (disappearance of evidences) of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act.

The 72-year-old Chinmayanand also faces the charges of stalking under section 354 D, wrongful confinement under section 342 and criminal intimidation under section 506 of the IPC.

The SIT was constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government on the orders of the Supreme Court in September to investigate the charges levelled by the woman, who was then a postgraduate student at a college run by Chinmayanand's trust.

The woman went missing on August 24, a day after she posted a video on social media alleging that a "senior leader of the sant community" was harassing and threatening to kill her.

Her father had filed a complaint with the police, accusing Chinmayanand of sexually harassing her, a charge refuted by the former Union minister's lawyer who claimed it was a "conspiracy" to blackmail him.

Chinmayanand was later arrested on September 21.