Cuttack: Self-styled godman Sarathi Baba aka Santosh Raul is all set to walk free from the Choudwar Circle Jail soon as the Orissa High Court (HC) on Monday granted bail to him in a case pertaining to alleged sexual exploitation of a woman and her daughter at his Barimula Ashram in Kendrapara on surety of Rs 2 lakh and two bailers.
Raul was earlier granted bail by HC and Supreme Court in two other cases.
In 2016, he was granted bail by the HC in connection with a cheating case registered against him by the Crime Branch in 2015. Apart from this, a medical student had lodged a molestation case against him in which he was granted bail by the Supreme Court in May 2017.
Sarathi was arrested by the Crime Branch on August 8, 2015 and booked for cheating, forgery and fraud. A woman inmate of Sarathi’s ashram in Kendrapada had also lodged a sexual abuse case against him. And since then he was lodged at the Choudwar Circle Jail in Cuttack.
The controversial godman grabbed the headlines after few regional news channels showed clippings of the godman with a woman at a hotel in Hyderabad in 2015.
