The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to follow all possible steps to trace Virendra Dev Dixit, founder of a Delhi-based ashram where girls and women were allegedly kept in confinement.
Not a ‘Vishwavidyalaya’
A Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar also ordered the ashram, Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya, to refrain from representing itself as “Vishwavidyalaya” and from using the word university immediately.
The court observed that the use of the word ‘Vishwavidyalaya’ by the ashram was completely contrary to the law and does not fall in the ambit of University Grants Commission (UGC) norms. As per the UGC Act, “University” means an institute established or incorporated by or under a central act, a provincial act or a State act.
The court asked CBI to follow all possible means under the law to secure the appearance of Mr. Dixit, who has not joined the investigation since the court began hearing the case in December last year.
It told the Delhi Police to facilitate the meeting of the family members with the women and girls illegally confined in the ashram and listed the matter for March 15. The court was hearing a petition by NGO Foundation for Social Empowerment alleging that several minors and women were illegally confined at the “spiritual university” and were not allowed to meet their parents.
Earlier, the court had transferred the case to CBI after it was told that the Delhi Police did not take any action on the nearly 10 FIRs lodged against the ashram and its members. Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal, who was part of a court-appointed panel that visited the ashram, had said the girls and women were kept in the ashram in “unhygienic and animal-like conditions with no privacy even for bathing”.
Ms. Maliwal had told the court that the panel members were assaulted and confined for about an hour by some ashram inmates when they went to inspect the premises. The police had to break open many of the locked iron doors as the ashram inmates were not cooperating, she claimed. The court had said that the ashram cannot work under a “shroud of secrecy”, and told its founder and members to come clean on the allegations.
