The Delhi High Court on Thursday ordered the removal of defamatory content posted by a Tamil magazine Nakkheeran against Jaggi Vasudev's Isha Foundation.
Justice Subramonium Prasad passed the interim order in favour of Isha Foundation.
The Court also rejected an application filed by Nakkheeran under Order 7 Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) seeking rejection of Isha Foundation's suit.
Isha Foundation moved the Court seeking ₹3 crore in damages from Nakkheeran and its editor Gopal for allegedly posting defamatory content. The foundation has also made Google LLC a party, owing to the defamatory materials coming up on Google search and videos being posted on its platform YouTube.
Isha Foundation contended that Nakkheeran published critical content against it. These reports alleged various forms of misconduct within the Foundation, including claims of exploitation, brainwashing and illegal activities. Such allegations suggested that individuals at the Foundation are held against their will or coerced into certain actions.
According to Isha, Nakkheeran published these articles despite the Supreme Court order closing the proceedings in a habeas corpus petition filed by a father alleging that two of his daughters had been “brainwashed" by the Foundation.
The issue arose after the Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu government to submit details of all criminal cases registered against the Isha Foundation.
This was after a man moved the Court alleging that two of his daughters aged 42 and 39 had been “brainwashed” to reside at the Isha Yoga Centre..
On October 18, 2024, a Supreme Court Bench of then Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra noted that both women were adults and had made clear their wishes to live at the Yoga centre.
"We had spoken to both the ladies and recorded. Both of them said that they are living there on free will and we need to close the habeas corpus plea," CJI Chandrachud said.
Hence, it closed the case against Isha Foundation. However, the Bench made it clear that its order will not prevent police from proceeding with any other investigation.
Isha Foundation subsequently moved the Delhi High Court against the defamatory articles on Nakkheeran.
Isha Foundation was represented by Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao with advocates Rohan Jaitley, Mehrunissa Anand Jaitley, Areeb, Dev Pratap Shahi, Varun Pratap Singh, Yogya Bhatia, Pushpaveni, as well as Simranjeet Singh (Partner), Rishabh Pant and Abhijeet Pandey from Athena Legal.
Advocates VT Perumal, Dr Ram Sankar, K Vaijayanthi, Shaarumathi, Ashwin Sam and Nagender represented Nakkheeran.
Advocates Aditya Gupta and Rohith Venkatesan and Vani Kaushik represented Google.