New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu Police Friday informed the Supreme Court that it has not come across any evidence supporting a retired professor’s allegations that his daughters, aged 38 and 42, are illegally confined at spiritual guru Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation Yoga Center near Coimbatore.
In their 174-page report, the police said the women had denied that they were being held in the ashram against their wishes. The police annexed these statements to support their findings. The statements, perused by ThePrint, denied charges about their illegal detention in the ashram. Both narrated their individual journeys, their move to the ashram in 2006 and eventually embracing monkhood in 2011.
While one of the two said she got initiated as a follower of Isha Foundation after her disturbed marriage, during which she experienced continuous domestic violence, her younger sister became a disciple in 2005 when an Isha Foundation yoga programme was held in her engineering college campus in Chennai. Both continued with their practices for a year and volunteered for the foundation before joining the ashram as full-time volunteers, following which they embraced monkhood.
After perusing their statements and the Tamil Nadu Police’s report, the Supreme Court Friday closed the case filed against Isha Foundation by the two women devotees’ father. A bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud ordered a closure of the habeas corpus petition that sought production of the two women before the court.
The bench said that in view of the categorical statements made by the two women, no directions can be issued for police enquiry on the allegations made by their father. The apex court also frowned upon the Madras High Court that ordered the police to carry out a probe into the father’s complaint, despite the firm statement given by the women on their right to choose to live where they wanted to.
“Since both of them are adults and the purpose of habeas corpus was fulfilled, no further directions were needed from the High Court,” the bench said, while disposing of the case. “These proceedings cannot be to malign people and institutions.”
The Tamil Nadu Police submitted its report subsequent to the SC direction issued to them last week. The report was based on the police probe that was triggered by a Madras High Court order dated 30 September where the father approached with his habeas corpus petition in which he alleged his daughters were forced to live inside the ashram. In deference to the HC order, the police raided the ashram on 1 October and recorded the statements of all residents living there.
Upon a challenge by Isha Foundation, the SC halted the probe on 3 October and had the case transferred from the HC to itself. However, by then, the police had already carried out a partial enquiry into the case.
The police report, given to the SC Friday, said that they interviewed 30 of the 217 monks living at Isha Foundation, who stated they were residing there on their own will. Apart from them, 2,455 volunteers, 891 paid staff, 1,475 paid workers, 342 Isha home school students, 175 Isha Samskriti students, 704 guests/volunteers and 912 guests are residing in cottages of the Isha Yoga Centre, the report noted.
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The 2 women living healthy life at Isha Foundation: TN Police
As for the two women, the police said they were living a healthy life there and were in a good physical and mental condition. In their statements, the women gave details about their parents’ regular visits to the ashram and also provided CCTV footage of their meetings with them. They added that their relationship with their father started deteriorating from 2016 when he started making public accusations about their confinement which, they asserted, were false.
Despite the differences, the daughters patched up with their parents in June this year and invited them to celebrate their marriage anniversary in the ashram. Soon after the parents left the ashram, the father resumed his tirade against Isha Foundation and gave media interviews reiterating his “false” claims, the women said in their statement to the police.
Both said they were ready to meet their parents at any time and also expressed apprehensions about the father preventing the mother from visiting them at the ashram.
In its 174-page report, the police also provided information on the cases of six missing persons that have been registered over the past 15 years in relation to Isha Foundation. Of these, five have been closed, while one remains under investigation.
A Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) case registered against a doctor associated with Isha Outreach is pending trial before a court in Coimbatore, the police report added. Another sexual assault complaint, filed by a woman attending a yoga course in 2021 in the ashram, was withdrawn, the report said, adding the Tamil Nadu Police are seeking to reopen the probe in it.
During the hearing Friday, the father’s lawyer demanded a deeper probe into the conditions of ashram inmates. This prompted the CJI to express his doubts about the motive behind the habeas corpus petition.
“Now I have doubts whether you are appearing for a political party or you are espousing cause for your daughter,” the CJI said, observing that the court cannot compel two adults to live against their wishes. “When you have grown children who are majors, you cannot file a complaint to control their lives.”
The bench declined the Tamil Nadu government’s request to dispose of the case with an observation that the closure of the habeas corpus hearing will not curtail the state police’s right to continue with the investigation in pending cases.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)