YADU RAM ALIAS ANAND SAGAR Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant has been convicted under Section 376, RPC and sentenced seven years' simple imprisonment by the learned Sessions Judge Jammu for having committed rape on P.W. 2 Shakti Dhar, a small girl of eight years. It appears that the appellant who posed to be a religious preacher utilised the services of young girls to slake his sexual just and having ravished one girl after the other he used Kamla, his victim, as an agent to procure other girls for hiM.P.W. 2 Shakti Dhar was introduced to him by P.W. Kamla who was a friend of Shakti.

(2.) PUT briefly the prosecution case was as follows : The appellant, Yado Ram alias Anand Sagar was originally a resident of district Gurgaon and came to the State about 15 years ago. For the last 13 years the appellant, had settled himself down at the Satsang Bhawan at Parkash Mandir in Mohalla Rani Talab Jammu. He set himself up as a religious leader, preacher and orator. His eloquence and profound knowledge of Vedanta philosophy attracted a large number of devotees mostly ladies, young and old, who assembled at the Satsang to hear the religious discourses given by the appellant. This, however, was a smoke screen and behind the curtain was the mischievous and hypocritical mind of the sell -styled Mahant which indulged in unsocial acts of ravishing and rapine young girls. Facts of the case.

(3.) THE accused pleaded innocence and filed a long written statement alleging that he had been the victim of a deepseated conspiracy, involving him in a heinous crime, hatched by his opponents Malik Chand Bhatia and Principal Makhan Lal. He has further alleged that the entire case against him has been concocted by Principal Makhan Lal who had got Shakti Dhar admitted to his school only a few days before the occurrence for the purpose of using her as an instrument to implicate him. The accused has further submitted in his written statement that Principal Makhan Lal was an ardent exponent of Anand Marg cult which is diametrically opposed to the cult preached by the appellant and this led to serious enmity between the two The appellant resisted all the attempts of Principal Makhan Lal to join the Anand Mare and was threatened with serious. consequences. The accused further alleged that Malik Chand Bhatia was a great leader of Hindu Sanatan Sabha and bore enmity with the accused because he refused to lend support to him. Finally the accused alleged that Dr. Mengi, a Jan Sangh leader, wanted to have the Sat Sangh Bhawan as an office for his party and he also joined the conspiracy to dislodge the accused from the Prakash temple. It would thus appear that the main defence of the accused is that the entire case has been bolstered up and concocted against him but he has no explanation whatsoever to offer for the medical evidence which found clear and categorical signs of rape on the person of Shakti Dhar.