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If a woman writes 'Baba I love you', does it mean she is available, Supreme Court asks Dera chief

A bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said "the tenor of the language of the letter allegedly written by the victim does not show consent at any point."

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Coming down heavily on Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the Supreme Court on Friday turned down his plea for more handwriting samples of an alleged rape victim in a 14-year-old case, observing that if a woman writes, "Babaji, I love you, does it mean that she is available?".

A bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said "the tenor of the language of the letter allegedly written by the victim does not show consent at any point."

Justice Misra said this reminded him of French writer Victor Hugo, whose "secretary for 49 years kept writing letters to him about her devotion and submission to him, but he never tried to seduce her".

The rape case is currently underway in CBI special court at Panchkula as the Punjab and Haryana High Court had transferred CBI special judge RK Yadav just before the pronouncement of the final order.

The victim was an inmate of ashram of Dera Sacha Sauda at Sirsa in Haryana, and the alleged incident happened in 1999. The FIR was registered in 2002.

Senior advocate Jayant Bhushan, appearing for the self-proclaimed godman, argued that the victim's letter was a crucial piece of evidence and is inconsistent with the allegation.

He said the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh has in its report said they needed more handwriting samples to arrive at any conclusion.

However, the court said for about one year, no hearing could take place in the case at the trial court since the Dera chief had asked for examination of specimen handwriting and signatures of one of the two victims before forensic labs other than the CFSL.

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