JAIPUR: A bench of justices Vijay Bishnoi and Yogendra Kumar Purohit earlier las week, set aside the decision of the parole committee to reject convicted godman Asaram's application seeking parole for 20 days and directed it to decide it afresh within six weeks. 

Asaram whose real name is Asumal Sirumalani Harpalani is 82 years old and is currently in jail in Jodhpur in a case of raping a minor girl at his ashram in Rajasthan in 2013, his application for parole had earlier been rejected by the District Parole Advisory Committee stating he was not entitled for parole under the Rajasthan Prisoners Release on Parole Rules, 2021. Asaram later moved the high court, challenging this order.

Asaram's counsel Kalu Ram Bhati argued that the petitioner was convicted and sentenced by the trial court on April 25, 2018, whereas the Rules of 2021 had come into force on June 30, 2021, after which the court decided to set the parole committee's rejection order. 

In 2013 Asaram landed in controversy when a 16-year-old girl student of his gurukul alleged that he sexually assaulted her at his Jodhpur ashram in Rajasthan. The godman had purportedly threatened to eliminate the victim’s parents if she revealed the incident to anyone.

A zero FIR accusing the spiritual leader of rape (as defined under the new definition), molestation, illegal confinement, criminal intimidation and acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman under the Indian Penal Code and sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and certain offences under the Juvenile Justice Act has been registered at the Kamla Market police station in Delhi.

In 2018 Asaram was found guilty of the rape of a minor girl and was convicted by Special Judge Madhusudhan Sharma of a special Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe court in Jodhpur to serve life imprisonment in Jodhpur.

In 2013, after Asaram Bapu was arrested for raping a girl in Rajasthan, two Surat-based women accused the self-styled godman and his son Narayan Sai of sexual exploitation, at their ashram in Ahmedabad's Motera around 10 years ago between 1997 and 2006. After the trial, earlier this year, Gujarat's Gandhinagar sessions court sentenced him to another life imprisonment. 

After the complaint was filed, Narayan Sai had initially absconded and evaded arrest for nearly two months before being apprehended and arrested in a massive combined operation of Delhi, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana police along the Delhi-Haryana border, and brought to Surat for custody.

The other accused in the case, Asaram's wife Lakshmi, daughter Bharati, and four female followers Dhruvben, Nirmala, Jassi and Meera were acquitted by the Gandhinagar court.