Swami Chinmayanand produced in UP court; next hearing on Dec 16

Shahjahanpur, Nov 30: Former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand, accused of sexually exploiting a student of a law college run by his trust, told a UP court on Saturday the case diary provided to him was incomplete, prompting the court to order that a complete diary be made available to him.

Chinmayanand was produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate Omvir amid tight security. His counsel Om Singh said the case diary made available to him by the SIT was incomplete and the court has directed for providing a complete case diary. The CJM court fixed Dec 16 as the next date for hearing, prosecution counsel Lal Saheb said.

The Special Investigation Team probing sexual harassment allegations against Chinmayanand and a related extortion case filed a voluminous charge sheet in a court here on Nov 6 in the two cases.

The former Union minister was arrested on Sept 20 and is in jail after the 23-year-old law student filed a case against him under section 376C of the IPC, an offence pertaining to the abuse of position to "induce or seduce" a woman to have "sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape".

This is a lesser charge than section 376, under which a rape convict faces a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. The punishment under section 376C is between five and 10 years in jail. The four accused in the extortion case include the woman law student. All of them are in jail.

The 72-year-old Chinmayanand also faces the charges of stalking under section 354D, wrongful confinement under section 342 and criminal intimidation under section 506 of the IPC.