‘Victim’s voice is irrefutable’: Rajasthan High Court upholds Asaram’s life term in minor’s rape case, cancels bail

The high court Wednesday set aside his conviction for gangrape, aggravated penetrative sexual assault and criminal conspiracy.

However, it upheld his conviction under Indian Penal Code sections relating to trafficking of a minor; wrongful confinement; criminal intimidation; sexual harassment; word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman; and for being a relative, guardian, teacher, or person in a position of trust or authority who commits rape on such woman.

His conviction was also upheld under provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, including for sexual assault.

The court said it was in full agreement with the trial court’s “well-reasoned order denying leniency to the appellant”.

“The appellant was 73 at the time. He is now 86. He thus stands before us bent by age and burdened by ailment, imploring a fresh look at his plea for leniency. We have considered his plea and applied our mind. We are unable to grant any indulgence, since in the shadow of his frailty cannot justify ignoring the victim’s voice. Quiet. Devastating. Irrefutable. To ignore it would be to shake society’s faith in the criminal justice system, and send wrong a message no court must ever send, least of all when the perpetrator hid behind the cloak of a self-styled godman,” the HC observed.

The court said the victim “does not come to this Court seeking sympathy but justice”.

“She comes bearing an inconvenient truth: that for the appellant, imprisonment is only physical. His confinement has walls. Her sentence has none of these. No warrant was ever issued for it. No court ever pronounced it. Yet, it was imposed upon her the moment this godman chose violation of law and morality over his vows,” it said.

It further said: “The sentence served upon her soul is lifelong, written not in ink, but in indelible anguish. It knows no remission, no parole, no appellate remedy. For, a rape victim does not merely carry a wound. She carries an erasure — of her dignity, of her identity, of the self she was before the moment which not only completely destroyed, but cleaved her life into a before and an after. The violation does not end when the act ends. It reverberates through every moment of silence, every crowded room, every ordinary day made unbearable by the indelible memory of it”.

‘Faith is a powerful force’

Asaram had challenged his conviction on several grounds, including that the trial judge failed in his duty to restrain adverse media propaganda against him; that the trial was vitiated by such propaganda; and that the investigating agency and prosecution consciously acted in a manner that made it impossible to examine the case dispassionately. He also argued that the e-FIR was lodged after inordinate delay, and that too in Delhi rather than the jurisdictional police station, as part of a pre-concerted and deeply planned conspiracy; and that the trial court failed to identify the real reasons behind this course. He further alleged flaws and dishonest manipulations in the investigation.

Among several other contentions, Asaram also claimed that the trial court judge had erred in determining the age of the girl.

On certain discrepancies pointed out by Asaram’s lawyers, including in the victim’s accounts, the court said these were “on minute peripheral details and do not erode or destroy the substratum of the case. Human perception is not a precision instrument”.

It said that at 10.30 pm on the night of the incident, “the kutiya/room held only two souls. The appellant/Asharam and the minor victim”.

“The door was shut. The bolt was drawn. The lights were extinguished. Within those four walls, in that darkness, only they knew what transpired. No third eye witnessed it; no third voice could speak to it. In such circumstances, to demand corroborative ocular evidence before believing the victim would be to demand the impossible. That would be punishing her for the very isolation her abuser engineered,” it said.

It went on to say: “And then there is the question that answers itself: why would Asha Ram [sic] summon a young girl alone to his room almost in the dead of night? The question is not rhetorical. It is damning. Innocence does not seek darkness and bolted doors. The intent writes itself across these facts in letters too large to ignore. The facts need no embellishment. They speak. Loudly, clearly, and with the force of truth. The victim’s account, therefore, stands unimpeached and cannot be discarded merely for want of independent witnesses to a crime committed in deliberate secrecy”.

On the question of faith and the circumstances leading to the incident, the HC said faith is a powerful force — “powerful enough to suspend even the sharpest of minds”.

“Devotees of religious gurus will often embrace, without question, the most superstitious pronouncements and irrational counsel, including tales of ghosts and the supernatural. What is more striking is that even prudent, scientifically minded individuals are not immune: when they repose deep trust in another, reason quietly yields to belief,” the court said.

This surrender of rationality is all the more pronounced when a person “stands at the edge of despair, trapped in crisis, overwhelmed by difficulty, and desperately searching for answers that logic has failed to provide”, the court said.

“‘It is precisely in such moments of vulnerability that the irrational finds its most willing audience. Devotion thus has a peculiar power to suspend reason. Quite often, devotees of religious gurus would fall prey, without questioning those in whom they have faith. As seems to have happened in the case in hand,” it said.

In the present case, the victim had started experiencing “giddiness” and the hostel warden, Shilpi, informed her that she was under the influence of ghosts or evil spirits and that the matter would be discussed with Asaram; this eventually led to the rape.

“In the case in hand, a child who, along with her parents, did not merely trust the man, whom they worshiped as a Godman, but she consecrated that trust. She came to him not as a stranger, but as a disciple. She came with folded hands, not knowing that the very sanctum she sought refuge in had become a predator’s lair. How to fight such a powerful man, it required a lot of self-persuasion and courage and overcoming of the fears,” the HC said.