The Punjab & Haryana High Court on Monday while admitting separate pleas filed by the jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh challenging his 20-year sentence in rape cases and that of the two victims seeking life imprisonment for him, issued a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had probed the case.
The High Court, however, rejected Ram Rahim’s plea regarding a fine of over Rs 30 lakh imposed on him by the CBI court, and asked him to deposit the amount in a fixed deposit in a bank.
As the case came up for hearing on Monday, a Division Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Sudhir Mittal, directed Ram Rahim to deposit the amount within two months with the CBI court, Panchkula. The amount will not be given to the rape victims till the matter is decided by the court.
“The revision petition filed by rape victims for enhancing the sentence to life imprisonment for Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been admitted,” said victims’ counsel Navkiran Singh while talking to the mediapersons.
The counsel for Dera sect chief SK Garg Narwana told the mediapersons that “the court has also admitted our appeal (challenging the conviction). The High Court has directed us to deposit fine with a bank in the shape of FDR through the court within two months. If appeal is finalised in our favour, then we will get back the money with interest.”
Both the pleas will now be heard together.
The jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had moved the Punjab and Haryana 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.
The order was challenged on several grounds including delay of more than six years in recording the statements of the victims by the CBI.
The special CBI Court in Panchkula, adjoining Chandigarh, had on August 25 convicted the Dera chief for the rape of his two women disciples in 1999 and sentenced him to 10-year imprisonment each, which were to run consecutively.
In their petition in the High Court, the two ‘sadhvis’ had said the 10-year jail term handed over to the Dera chief for each rape was not enough and he should be sentenced to a life term.
The victims had pointed out that in rape cases where a person in a position of authority or power misuses that position to commit rape, he should be given the maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
They pointed out that a lesser punishment “will not achieve the ends of justice”.
“Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh as the head of a religious organisation had committee a grave breach of trust and he was called ‘Pita ji’ (father). Abusing his position as a religious head, in whom the followers had blind faith, he committed rape on the victims,” the petitioners said.
Under new law provisions introduced after the 2012 gang rape and murder of Nirbhaya in Delhi, a person in position of power and trust faces a maximum of life imprisonment for rape.
After Ram Rahim’s conviction by the CBI court on August 25, violence and arson had erupted in Panchkula and Sirsa districts which left 41 people dead and more than 260 injured.
Ram Rahim is currently lodged in Sunaria jail in Rohtak district.
The CBI court in Panchkula is hearing two more cases against the sect chief — murder of former Dera manager Ranjit Singh in July 2003 and murder of Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati in October 2002.
In April 2002, an anonymous letter was written to the then Chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, complaining about alleged sexual exploitation of woman followers at Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa.
Then in May 2002, the High Court had directed Sirsa district and sessions judge to probe the allegations in the letter. In September 2002, the High Court had handed over the matter to the CBI after the district court indicated possibility of sexual exploitation.