Lucknow, Oct 14 (UNI) In a major respite to former union minister Swami Chinmayanand in a rape case, the girl, who accused him, has suddenly turned hostile before the trial court.



The girl, a 23-year-old LLM student had charged former BJP MP Swami Chinmayanand of sexual exploitation last year and the special MP-MLA court here was hearing the case on the direction of the Allahabad high court



The student appeared before the court on Tuesday and categorically denied that she had made any allegations against the former minister as the prosecution had charged.



Surprised over the sudden development, the prosecution team immediately moved an application under Section 340 of CrPC seeking action against her for perjury.

Special Judge PK Rai directed his office to register the application and asked the prosecution to furnish a copy of the application to the woman and the accused. The court fixed October 15 for hearing on the application.

The woman was a student of a law college run by Chinmayanand’s ashram in Shahjahanpur and had accused him of sexual exploitation. The case hogged national headlines when the woman vanished and appeared before the Supreme Court. UP government formed an SIT to probe the case.



Later, Chinmayanad also alleged that she was trying to extort money from him. The two lodged counter-FIRs and later both were arrested. The two are now out on bail.



Chinmayanand was arrested on September 20, 2019. The investigation officer filed a chargesheet against him under Section 376 (C), 354(D), 342 and 506 of IPC. The IO cited 33 witnesses and 29 documentary evidence in a 13-page chargesheet.



The former union minister was released on bail in February.

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