Madhya Pradesh's Computer Baba released after one month in prison in illegal Ashram case 

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday ordered the immediate release of religious leader Computer Baba, arrested earlier this month after his 'illegal' ashram in Indore district was demolished. Subsequently, he was released from prison in the evening. A division bench of Justices S C Sharma and Shailendra Shukla directed that Namdeo Das Tyagi (54), popularly known as Computer Baba, should be released forthwith if he was not wanted in any other case.

The court was hearing a habeas corpus petition, his lawyer said. Habeas corpus petition is generally filed when a person is missing or has been illegally detained. The order should be immediately forwarded to the jail authorities, and Additional Advocate General Pushyamitra Bhargava "shall also undertake to communicate the order...to the Superintendent of Central Jail, today itself," the HC said. Bhargava told the court that Baba was arrested under section 151 (arrest to prevent the commission of cognizable offence) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and an order for his release has already been issued.

Baba was arrested on November 8 by way of preventive action after the illegal construction he had made on two acres of government land on the city''s outskirts was demolished. Three cases were registered against him at two police stations here after the arrest. His lawyer Vibhor Khandelwal said the lower courts had granted his client bailin all three cases.

Computer Baba was appointed chairman of a river conservation trust by the previous Kamal Nath-led Congress government and enjoyed the status of Minister of State. Before that, the BJP government too had given him MoS rank. He later fell out with the BJP. In the run-up to November 3 by-elections to 28 Assembly seats in the state, he had dubbed 22 rebel Congress MLAs who joined the BJP as "traitors".

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MP Bypolls 

The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh won 19 out of the 28 assembly constituencies, where bypolls were held on November 3, giving it a comfortable majority in the House and providing stability to its eight-month-old government in the state. The opposition Congress clinched nine seats. With this, the BJP now has 126 MLAs in the 230-member House, while the Congress has 96 legislators. Due to the resignation of one more Congress MLA recently, the effective strength of the House is 229 at present.

The comfortable victory of the BJP, which needed only eight seats to have a full majority on its own in the 229- member House, will not only provide stability to the party-led government in the state but also further cement the position of senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who quit the Congress earlier this year and joined the saffron party.

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