A Different Ramakatha

2014

• June 30 Victim reveals ordeal to her husband, a math official

• July 5 Family elders and math leaders call on the pontiff, who says he will go to the Himalayas after end of Chaturmasya

• August 17 FIR registered in Honnavar against the victim’s husband for allegedly blackmailing disciples; victim made an accomplice

• August 26 The couple is arrested; the victim’s daughter lodges an FIR about sexual abuse of her mother by the pontiff

• August 31 While the couple is in jail, the victim’s ‘harassed’ brother-in-law commits ‘suicide’

• September 8 Pontiff files writ petition in Karnataka High Court to quash rape charges. HC stays arrest.

• October 9 HC dismisses pontiff’s petition. He is granted bail by Additional City Civil and Sessions judge, Bangalore.

• October 20 Pontiff secures stay order on medical tests questioning constitutional validity of the tests

• October 22 Victim receives a threat letter and after 10 days a known strongman, ‘Kali Yogesh’, calls her

• November 20 CID confirms to HC that semen traces were found on the victim’s clothes

• November 28 HC division bench presided over by CJ begins hearing appeal to quash the FIR after a single-judge bench dismisses the pontiff’s petition

• December 3 HC rules that the pontiff must undergo medical tests

• December 5 Swami appears for 13 out of 16 tests

• December 12 Advocate General informs HC that DNA collected from victim’s clothes matches pontiff’s

2015

• February 9 HC dismisses the pontiff’s plea against probing the rape charges

• September 26 Police files a chargesheet against the pontiff for “repeatedly raping” a woman over whom he was in a “position of authority, trust and a teacher”, and “for inducing a person to believe that he will be rendered an object of divine displeasure”.