Gujarat HC removes 'round-the-clock security' condition from Asaram's interim bail

Gujarat High Court has deleted round the clock presence of security personnel in the vicinity of self-stlyed godman Asaram Bapu who is on interim bail of six months on medical conditions.

Earlier on November 6 when Gujarat High Court had granted conditional interim bail to Asaram and asked him to keep three security personnel in the form of police officials to be present near him during the interim bail period.

On November 21, the division bench of Justice Ilesh Vora and Justice R T Vachhani said that “so far this not holding the religious discourse etc will continue, we will not modify it”.

On November 6, Gujarat HC had granted six-month interim bail to self-styled godman Asaram Bapu on medical grounds in a 2013 rape case, noting that the Rajasthan High Court had extended similar relief in another matter involving identical health concerns.

In the interim bail order on November 6, the Gujarat HC had imposed a condition that the applicant shall not meet his followers in group and there shall be three security personnel in the form of police officials to be present in the vicinity of the applicant and the police official will not interfere with the medical treatment, his meeting with any individual and in a normal or lawful conduct, as directed earlier by the Supreme Court.

The fact of the case is that in 2013 a police complaint was filed by a woman from Surat, who claimed Asaram sexually assaulted her multiple times at his Motera ashram in Ahmedabad. The case, first registered in Surat, was shifted to Gandhinagar, where a trial court found him guilty in 2023 and imposed a life imprisonment.