A video of godman Nithayananda in a compromising position with an actor had rocked the country in March 2010, though he later claimed it was doctored. After eight years, the Madras High Court has revived a related case by condoning a delay of 2,130 days in filing a written statement to a civil suit filed by him in 2012.
Justice Anita Sumanth condoned the delay on the part of a former woman disciple against whom the godman had filed the suit in 2012 with a plea to restrain her from making statements or giving interviews regarding the video.
The delay was condoned on condition that the defendant should pay costs of ₹500 to the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority.
When the matter came up on Monday for reporting compliance of the condition, the judge recorded the defendant’s submission that the cost had been remitted promptly. Thereafter, she took the written statement on file and directed the High Court Registry to list the suit on September 4 for framing the issues that had to be dealt with in the case.
The godman had sought a permanent injunction restraining the prime defendant, a U.S.-returned engineer, and two others from “making statements, conducting any panel discussions, giving interviews, exhibiting, broadcasting, telecasting, allegations, reports, clippings, visuals etc... touching upon the guilt or otherwise of the plaintiff.” Stating that the prime defendant had admitted before the media that she was the one who had planted a hidden camera inside his bedroom, the godman claimed that the footage was morphed and used to blackmail him. He accused her of having released the footage after refused to pay her money.
‘Relief of equity’
Justice K. Chandru (since retired) had, on October 10, 2012, dismissed the plea for an interim injunction stating such a relief could not be granted when the godman himself had been liberally giving interviews to the media. A person “seeking relief of equity must also behave himself and not violate the very principle for which relief is sought for,” the judge had said.
Then the prime defendant had filed a counter-affidavit, stating that she had obtained an engineering degree from one of the premier engineering institutes in the country before settling down in Michigan in the US in 2004. However, the material achievements and resulting pleasures did not give her inner satisfaction and she was in search of eternal truth.
Attracted by the lectures of the godman on meditation, she visited his Ashram at Bidadi in Karnataka and joined his inner circle. Accusing him of having exploited her sexually by claiming it to be a divine relationship, she claimed to have learnt later that the godman was a heterosexual who had relationships even with his male disciples in the ashram.
Denying his allegation of her attempts to defame him by giving interviews to the media, the woman disciple claimed that it was he who had actually assassinated her character by making statements to the press.
