New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the AIIMS to set up a medical board to review the medical papers and reports of spiritual guru Asaram Bapu who is suffering from neurological aliment trigeminal neuralgia and whether he required surgery.
A bench of Justice TS Thakur, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice R Banumathi also said that if medical board could go ahead to conduct a clinical examination of Asaram, if it deemed it necessary.
Trigeminal neuralgia causes severe pain on the face or the forehead of the patient afflicted with it.
The 72-year-old Asaram, who is currently lodged in Jodhpur jail, was arrested in September last year after a 16-year-old girl lodged a police complaint August 20, 2013, accusing him of sexually assaulting her at his ashram in Jodhpur.
While court asked the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to review the medical papers of Asaram, it declined his plea for bail saying that he could make a fresh application for bail after all the material witnesses in the case have testified before the trial court.
It also asked the Rajasthan government to make available all the medical records of Araram to the AIIMS including those that he may like the medical board to look into.
On August 19, the court had asked the principal of Jodhpur-based SN Medical College to constitute a team of doctors that will examine Asaram for his ailment and the course of treatment required.
This board in its report said that Asaram was suffering from age related ailments including trigeminal neuralgia.
Meanwhile the court Wednesday asked the trial court in Jodhpur to call for four documents that Asaram wants to rely on to establish that on the day of alleged sexual assault, the victim was not a minor and thus he could not be tried under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).
However, the court asked the trial court to ensure that summoning of these documents disputing the July 7, 1997 date of birth of the victim should not unduly delay the trial.
The documents sought to be relied upon by Asaram are the admission form, and registration form submitted by her father in school when she took admission and the subsequent affidavit that was filed by her father.
All the three documents carry her date of birth, which senior counsel Siddhartha Luthra said would establish that she was not a minor on the date of the alleged incident.
The fourth document relates to an insurance policy that was taken in the favour of the girl by her parents. The original application form is in Bareilly office of the Life Insurance Corpataion of India.
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