Molestation case: Gravity of 'godman' Chaitanyananda Saraswati's offence rose with victim count, says Delhi court; defers plea to October 27

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court, while hearing the bail plea of self-styled godman Chaitanyananda Saraswati, on Monday observed that the gravity of the offence increased multifold because of the number of women students accusing him of the same crime.

Chaitanyananda is in judicial custody in a case where he is accused of molesting 17 women of a private institute.Additional sessions judge Deepti Devesh, who deferred the plea to Oct 27, observed during the proceedings that no grounds were made at the present stage for the grant of bail.

Earlier, the defense counsel argued that his client was falsely implicated, stating that a false case was filed after the women were allegedly threatened and told that their scholarship would be withdrawn."The allegations are that he put colours on his disciples on Holi, and he had handshakes with them. Please look at the allegations. There are no sexual offences," he said.Chaitanyananda's counsel said that all the alleged offences except for BNS Section 232 (threatening any person to give false evidence) were bailable and that the offence, which was added later during the investigation, was punishable with a maximum sentence of three years.

Raising a query to the defence counsel, the judge said, "You are saying that he (accused) has been implicated. But there are 16 victims. It is possible to induce one, two, possibly even three, but how is it possible to persuade all 16?...The statements of victims, all 16 of them. Are they not substantive evidence?" The investigating officer (IO), meanwhile, told the court that WhatsApp chats of the complainants were not available because of the "disappearing messages" feature being enabled in phones, and that there were only screenshots of the chats. "Three women were also involved. They forced the students to delete the chats," the IO said. Asked whether the three women had been arrested, the investigating officer told the court, they were only "bound down".