A district court here on Monday rejected the bail pleas of BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand and the law student who has accused him of rape.
The two were sent to 14-day-judicial custody after being arrested in cases that now run parallel.
The former Union minister was booked under section 376C, a charge short of rape, on the basis of a complaint filed by the 23-year-old woman who studied at a college run by his ashram.
The woman herself was charged with extortion, following a complaint by Chinmayanand's lawyer that she and three others were blackmailing the 72-year-old politician and demanding money from him.
"District judge Rambabu Sharma heard the bail application of Swami Chinmayanand, and also the bail plea of the girl in the extortion case. The court dismissed both the bail applications," government counsel Anuj Kumar Singh told PTI.
Chinmayanand's advocate Om Singh said, "Following the rejection of the bail plea, an appeal will be filed in the Allahabad High Court."