Swami Chinmayanand who is accused of rape discharged from Lucknow hospital

Lucknow, Sep 30: Former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand, against whom a law student had levelled rape charges, was discharged from hospital on Monday. He was admitted to Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences here.

The bulletin issued by the hospital said, "Swami Chinmayanand was discharged today from the cardiology ward of the SGPGI at 6.30 pm." When contacted, Chief Medical Superintendent of the SGPGI, Dr Amit Agarwal, confirmed the development. "He (Chinmayanand) has been discharged from the hospital," the official told PTI.

Chinmayanand was admitted to the SGPGI here on September 23. Earlier, doctors in Shahjahanpur had referred the BJP leader to Lucknow for angiography in view of his health condition, jail sources said.

Earlier in the day, a district court here on Monday rejected the bail pleas of BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand and the law student who has accused him of rape. The two were sent to 14-day-judicial custody after being arrested in cases that now run parallel.

The former Union minister was booked under section 376C, a charge short of rape, on the basis of a complaint filed by the 23-year-old woman who studied at a college run by his ashram. The woman herself was charged with extortion, following a complaint by Chinmayanand's lawyer that she and three others were blackmailing the 72-year-old politician and demanding money from him.