The self-described godman Asaram, who is currently serving a life sentence in a rape case, filed a plea seeking a sentence suspension, but the Supreme Court rejected it on Friday. Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi was asked by a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta to proceed to the Rajasthan High Court for additional proceedings. The bench recommended that he file a plea for treatment at an Ayurvedic hospital at the Rajasthan High Court. As a result, Asaram later retracted his appeal from the highest court.
Asaram had sought suspension of his sentence, citing a decline in his health condition.
The top court asked the High Court to hear Asaram’s appeal expeditiously.
Rohatgi told the bench that Asaram has had many heart attacks, suffers from anaemia with bleeding in the stomach, and has other health issues because of his age.
In 2018, Asaram was found guilty by a special court in Jodhpur for crimes like sexual assault, including rape and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.
After being apprehended in Indore and taken to Jodhpur, Asaram was detained on September 2, 2013, for the rape of a teenage girl in his ashram that same year. The girl had claimed that on the evening of August 15, 2013, he had called her to his ashram outside of Jodhpur and attacked her.
