SIT files chargesheet in Chinmayanand rape case, extortion case against victim

New Delhi, Nov 06: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing sexual harassment allegations against former Union Minister Swami Chinmayanand filed a chargesheet in court in the related extortion case on Wednesday.

The SIT filed the 20-page charge sheets in both the cases. The case diary runs into 4,700 pages, after a two-month-long investigation.

The investigating agency also submitted 79 evidences and told the court that it had cross-examined 105 people during the investigations.

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.

Chinmayanand was arrested on September 21. Police had on August 27 booked him under sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code based on the father's complaint.

He was later booked under section 376C of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is usually applied in cases where a person abuses his position to "induce or seduce" a woman under his charge to have "sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape".

The woman went missing since 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 72-year-old Chinmayanand of sexually harassing her, a charge refuted by the former Union minister's lawyer who claimed it was a "conspiracy" to blackmail him.