Narayan Sai charge-sheeted in bribery case by Surat police

Surat police filed charge-sheet against Narayan Sai under Prevention of Corruption Act, for allegedly conspiring to bribe police and judicial officials to weaken a rape case lodged against him.

Surat: The Surat police filed a charge-sheet in a special court here on Monday against Narayan Sai and eight others, charging them under the Prevention of Corruption Act, for allegedly conspiring to bribe police and judicial officials to weaken a rape case lodged against him. The charge-sheet was filed today in the court of Principal District and Sessions Judge I C Shah. The police has named nine persons, including Sai and sub-inspector C K Kumbhani, as accused.

They have been charged under Sections 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The others who have been charged in the case include Sai`s followers like Uday Sanghani, builder Ketan Patel and others. The police has named three others, who are absconding, but did not identify them as accused, in the charge-sheet. Narayan Sai, the 42-year-old son of Asaram, has been arrested for repeatedly sexually assaulting one of the two Surat-based sisters, who was an inmate of his ashram here, between 2002 and 2005. It was during Sai`s remand period (in connection with the rape case) that the city crime branch unearthed a plan to bribe cops, doctors and even judicial officers to dilute the rape case against him. The police had arrested eight persons, including Kumbhani, and seized Rs 5 crore in cash from various persons. Narayan Sai was arrested from the Delhi-Haryana border in December 2013, after evading law for nearly two months following registration of the rape case against him. The two Surat-based sisters had lodged two different complaints against Sai and his father Asaram, accusing them of rape, sexual assault, illegal confinement and other charges. The Surat police had booked Narayan Sai under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including rape, unnatural sex, molestation, wrongful confinement, unlawful assembly, rioting armed with deadly weapon, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy. In her complaint, the younger of the two Surat-based sisters had accused Narayan Sai of repeated sexual assault between 2002 and 2005 when she lived in his Surat ashram. The elder sister, in her complaint against Asaram, had accused him of repeated sexual assault between 1997 and 2006 when she lived in his ashram on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Asaram (72) is currently lodged in a Jodhpur jail in connection with alleged sexual assault of a minor daughter of one of his followers in his Jodhpur ashram last year. A chargesheet was filed against Asaram last month in a court in Gandhinagar.