Ram Rahim moves HC against rape conviction

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 25

A month after he was convicted by a special CBI court in two cases of rape, chief of Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh today moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the verdict of the Special CBI Court.

The 50-year-old self-styled godman was held guilty on August 25 and thereafter lodged in the Rohtak District Jail, where he was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment in each case consecutively, along with a fine, on August 28.

In his petition filed through his lawyer, Ram Rahim contended that the trial court had misconstrued the evidence and not appreciated and considered the oral evidence, documentary evidence and other evidence on record in the right perspective.

He claimed that there were serious and material contradictions and omissions in the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, the result being that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove its case against him beyond reasonable doubt.

Ram Rahim averred that the trial court had ignored a very peculiar feature of this case, wherein the CBI lodged an FIR in which the victims were unidentified although the accused-appellant had been named.

It was an anonymous complaint and the identity of the complainants remained unknown during the investigations and trial. Still, the FIR and circumstances of lodging the same had been used by the trial court as a piece of evidence.

Contending that the approach of the trial court had been presumptive and one-sided as it used inadmissible hearsay evidence, he added that the cross-examination of the two victims as well as the documentary and circumstantial evidence brought on record to challenge the assertions of prosecution witnesses had not been considered and appreciated.

Ram Rahim further averred that the prosecution did not get his medical examination done to prove that he was capable of intercourse. The finding of the trial court that the plea of about his incapacity after 1990 was not substantiated because of his two daughters was totally erroneous and the trial court had presumed it because he was the father of three children without ascertaining the age of the children.

Seeking that the verdict and sentence of the trial court be set aside, he also contended that there was a delay of several years in the CBI recording the statements of the victims, during which the victims as well as witnesses might have been tutored or come under pressure.