High Court grants Anticipatory Bail to Swami Avimukteshwaranand in POCSO case

The Allahabad High Court granted anticipatory bail to prominent religious figure Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati in a POCSO case alleging sexual abuse of two minor boys at a camp, with Justice Jitendra Kumar Sinha flagging serious questions about the credibility of the allegations, the integrity of the complaint, and the procedural violations that followed the FIR's registration.

The case originated from a Special POCSO Court order directing Prayagraj Police to register an FIR probing allegations that Swami Avimukteshwaranand had sexually abused two minor boys at a camp. The complaint was filed by Ashutosh Maharaj, the Shankuri Peethadheshwar, notably, a plaintiff in the Krishna Janmabhoomi, Shahi Eidgah title dispute and a stranger to the alleged victims. Following registration of the FIR, Swami Avimukteshwaranand approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail, contending that the case was built on a fragile evidentiary foundation and driven by extraneous motives.

The defence pointed to a medical report that found no external injuries on the victims and offered only a non-committal opinion that sexual assault could not be ruled out, stopping well short of any conclusive finding, while also noting that the medical examination of the accused himself had not been conducted, as required under the applicable framework for sexual assault cases.

Justice Sinha found the totality of circumstances sufficient to extend the protection of anticipatory bail. The Court noted a fundamental inconsistency in the victims' conduct: rather than disclosing the alleged abuse to their natural guardians, they had narrated the incident to the complainant, a person with no familial connection to them, which the bench found incompatible with normal human behaviour. Compounding this, the Court took serious note of the fact that after the FIR was lodged, the alleged victims had been interviewed by multiple Hindi news channels in direct violation of the procedural safeguards mandated under the POCSO Act and the Juvenile Justice Act.

Quoting from its reasoning, the bench observed, "The medical report as prepared by the doctor does not find any external injury on the person of the victims and it has been opined that the sexual assault cannot be ruled out...which clearly shows that the conclusive finding has not been given by the doctor regarding commission of sexual assault." On this basis, anticipatory bail was granted.