Haryana: Evasive 'godman' sent to judicial custody till November 28

Chandigarh, Nov 20 (PTI) A day after his arrest, evasive 'godman' Rampal was on Thursday produced before the Punjab and Haryana High Court in a contempt of court case and was sent to judicial custody.

The two-judge bench posted the matter to November 28 with a direction to Haryana Police chief to file an affidavit giving details of the operation carried out to arrest Rampal from his ashram in Barwala in Haryana's Hisar district along with damages, injuries to people, regarding arms and ammunition in the Ashram and loss of property.

Rampal had been evading his appearance in a contempt of court case before the HC, which issued a direction to police to produce him by tomorrow.

Forced to keep the date, police last night arrested him from his ashram after days of standoff with his supporters, who posed stiff resistance and even resorted to violence on Tuesday.

The 63-year-old controversial godman had failed to appear on November 5 in the 2006 murder case after which a non-bailable warrant to be executed by November 10 was issued by the High Court in the contempt case. Haryana Police failed to produce Rampal on November 10 and the next date on November 17 after which the High Court slammed the police and issued a third non-bailable warrant with direction to produce the self proclaimed Godman on November 21.

Rampal was produced before the Division Bench of Justices M Jeyapaul and Darshan Singh at 2 pm after the Haryana Police informed the court in the morning that the NBW has been executed with the arrest of the accused from his Ashram at Barwala in Hissar district.

Defence counsel S K Garg said that Rampal himself was in captivity in the Ashram. Earlier, the contempt case was listed for tomorrow, but after the Haryana Police informed the court about the arrest of Rampal last night, the court directed his production at 2 pm today.

PTI