Swami Nithyananda’s bail plea allowed by High Court

The Karnataka High Court granted conditional bail on Friday to Swami Nithyananda, also known as Paramahamsa Nithyananda. Once the bail order is produced before the jail authorities and the Ramanagara Magistrate, Swami Nithyananda will be free again, after about two moths of prison life.

During his days in prison for almost two months, Nityananda has filed several petitions before the Ramanagara Court and the Karnataka High Court in Bangalore. This is the first of such pleas to bring him some relief. Two other petitions, seeking quashing of proceedings against him, his trusts, etc., and another petition against freezing of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam Trust's bank accounts, are still pending before the court. He had moved the High Court after the Ramanagara Court rejected his plea for bail.

Senior counsel and former Advocate-General B.V. Acharya appeared on behalf of Nityananda before the High Court. He said the Karnataka CID had not been able to place any credible evidence against the godman so far. He said his client had been kept in jail on flimsy grounds. He also said Nithyananda was wrongly booked under several charges under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He urged the court to grant him bail.

In his order, Justice Subash B. Adi allowed the bail petition of Nithyananda, subject to certain conditions. The court order asked Nithyananda Swami to refrain from giving any discourses or going away without permission of the jurisdictional courts at Ramanagara / Bangalore. The bail order also asked Nityananda to furnish a personal bond of Rs.100,000 and two personal sureties of Rs.100,000 each. Also, Paramahamsa Nithyananda has to report to a local police station once every fortnight. Swami Nithyananda was also asked to surrender his passport.

Nithyananda is likely to be freed on Monday from Ramanagara jail, about 40 km from Bangalore, according to jail authorities. They said The Karnataka High Court verdict will be presented to Ramanagara Magistrate who then will order the jail authorities to release Nithyananda after he executes the bond and agrees to fulfill other conditions stipulated by the bail order.

In March 2010, several television channels aired videos of Paramahamsa Nithyananda in his bedroom at Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam Ashram at Bidadi in Ramanagara District, allegedly showing him in sexual act with a woman, believed to be a Tamil film and television actress from Chennai. Nithyananda claimed the video footage was morphed.

Swami Nityananda had been on the run since March 23, 2010 when the Karnataka High Court dismissed his petition for anticipatory bail. Following the alleged sex scandal, Nithyananda has resigned as the head of Dhyanapeetam Ashram and various trusts he controls.

Swami Nithyananda was detected and arrested on April 21, 2010, along with one of his close disciples Bhaktananda and two others by the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Karnataka, from a house in a village near Solan in Himachal Pradesh. Nithyananda has been in lodged at the Ramanagara jail since then.

Swami Nithyananda’s driver, Lenin Karuppan, also known as Swami Dharmananda, has filed a complaint against him at a Chennai police station. The Chennai police transferred the case to Karnataka as the scene of the alleged crimes was in Bidadi. Once the Bidadi police registered a case, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Karnataka took over the investigations against Nithyananda.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda has been reportedly slapped with several criminal charges including rape, unnatural sex, and criminal intimidation and cheating. The discovery by CID of a non-disclosure agreement signed by his devotees showed that Dhyanapeetam Ashram allegedly asked followers to sign a 'sex contract' as a preemptive move against any legal action by the devotees. The 10-page non-disclosure agreement alerts devotees about participation in activities that ‘involve nudity... close physical proximity and intimacy, verbal and written descriptions and audio sounds of a sexually oriented and erotic nature.’

When the news of Nithyananda’s bail reached Dhyanapeetam Ashram at Bidadi, the inmates welcomed the verdict and greeted each other with joy. They hoped that the ashram would ‘spring back’ to life once again on the return of Paramahamsa Nithyananda.

Swami Nithyananda remanded to judicial custody till May 12

Swami Nithyananda, alias Rajashekaran, was today remanded in judicial custody till May 12 by the court in Ramanagaram on April 30, 2010, after he spent eight days in police custody.

The self-styled godman, who calls himself Paramahamsa Nithyananda, is being interrogated by the Karnataka CID probing various criminal charges including rape, unnatural sex, obscenity, fraud, criminal intimidation, violations of foreign exchange laws, gold-smuggling, possession of banned animal body parts like tiger skins, possession of banned sandalwood items, land scams, money-laundering, and hurting of religious sentiments. Nithya Bhaktananda alias Gopal Seelam Reddy, the swami’s principal aide is also in custody.

Swami Nithyananda denies all these charges. He has also, reportedly told the interrogators that he is not a man and it is impossible that he has committed rape. He has also asked the police to conduct a potency test on him, probably meaning either he is suffering from Erectile Dysfunction/ impotency (ED), or he belongs to what is known as the third sex (neutral), as some reports suggested. He claims that the alleged sex-tapes are fakes.

The court in Ramanagaram, about 40 KM from Bangalore, passed the remand order when Nityananda Swami was produced before it after eight days of police custody, the Karnataka police said. The Karnataka CID so far has not been able to make any significant headway in eliciting any information from him.

The police said, "We are in the process of analyzing the documents and memory card which we seized from Nityananda's former disciple Lenin Karuppanan when he was summoned here for questioning last week."

Lenin Karuppan, alias Nithya Dharmananda, is a former disciple of the godman, who was his driver and reportedly a member of his inner circle. Karuppan, it is alleged, was able to plant clandestine cameras in the bedrooms and private spaces of Paramahamsa Nithyananda with the help of one of the women inmates of his Bidadi Ashram. It is alleged that Ma Nithyananda Gopika, aka Nitya Gopika, who was a very intimate friend of the swami, helped Karuppan in recording the alleged Tantric sex adventures of the swami.

It is reported that 36 tapes are in the possession of the police, and at least five women were involved, including the alleged Tamil actress, Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) Hyderabad is reported to have confirmed. FSL also confirmed the tapes as original and ruled out any morphing, according to reports. The video clips were telecast by many TV channels, and found their way to the Internet, including YouTube.

Meanwhile, Tamil actress Ranjitha has denied her role in the tapes and served legal notices on Google Inc and YouTube for removal of the tapes, through her lawyers. She also denies to have given any interviews to any media. Her lawyers also warn others publishing such scandalous videos.

The Karnataka police are trying to find Nitya Gopika, considered as a vital lead in the case against Nithyananda, and she has been on the run since the sex tapes of Nithyananda were aired. But the police have not succeeded in establishing her identity and the only thing which is known to them is that she was a close friend of Nithyananda.

The police has got some lead about Nitya Gopika that she is a medical doctor who got a divorce from her husband, after she entered in a ‘non-disclosure sex contract’ at the ashram after which she was legally separated from her spouse. Nitya Gopika accompanied Nithyananda many times during his travelling to foreign countries. She had devoted herself to take care of his belongings according to reports.

Swami Nityananda back home after 'vanvas'

The self-styled godman Swami Nityananda, who elevated himself as Paramahamsa Nithyananda, is finally back home after his vanvas, thanks to Bangalore Police, who arrested him on Wednesday from his hideout in Mamlig village near Arki town in Solan District of Himachal Pradesh, about 50 km from Shimla.

Nityananda and his close aide and the head of his operations in the United States, Gopal Sheelum Reddy alias Nitya Bhaktananda were flown in to Bangalore and were whisked away to Ramanagaram Sessions court, the police told the media.

He was arrested along with his four associates, after he had been absconding for over a month after a purported video footage of him in a compromising position with the Tamil actress Ranjitha and alleged sexual relations with some other women and men. The arrests were made by a joint team of Karnataka Crime Investigation Department and Himachal Pradesh Police.

Swami Nityananda, alias Paramahamsa Nithyananda, according to Assistant superintendent of police, Solan, Ramesh Pathania, was wanted by Karnataka police in two cases under Sections 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 376 (punishment for rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC. Nityananda Swami had been on the run since March 23 when the Karnataka High Court rejected his plea for anticipatory bail.

The scandal-hit godman was staying in a rented house for the past one month. Himachal police got a fax from the Karnataka police on April 17 that they had information that Nityananda was hiding in Himachal Pradesh. Subsequently, two Karnataka deputy superintendents of police reached Shimla for investigation.

The police team zeroed in on the accused godman and his associates based on the information provided by a local taxi driver of Himachal Pradesh. Though Nityananda and Nithya Bhaktananda (Gopal Seelam Reddy) rarely moved out, their three other companions used to visit the nearby market to procure items of daily needs.

A Bangalore police official M.S. Hussain said, "Nityananda and Reddy reached Himachal Pradesh from Haridwar and they stayed in the village." The police seized $7,000 and Rs 300,000 in cash from Nityananda, and three laptops, eight mobile phones, three video cameras, and one SIM card procured from Himachal Pradesh were also recovered from them. The house where Nityananda was staying since March 27 belonged to a Delhi resident, who would be questioned soon, the police said.

Meanwhile, a CID team conducted a search of the Ashram of Nithyananda Swamiji at Bidadi, near Bangalore on 20 April, 2010, and seized important documents including computer hard disks, Director General, CID, Dr D V Guru Prasad said.

After the scandalous videos of Nityananda were aired on TV channels on March 3, the godman’s former driver Lenin Karuppan filed a complaint with the Chennai police commissioner. Another case was registered at Coimbatore by Vishwanath for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus. In Karnataka, the police registered the cases based on these two complaints and later they handed over the case to the CID, after which the CID sleuths started getting complaints from overseas through e-mails.

According to reports, Nithyananda is afraid of facing prosecution in the US following a case lodged by a US citizen Douglas Mckellor before the California State Attorney-General Jerry Brown, accusing the Swami of fraud, financial irregularities and physical abuse of devotees in USA. McKellor, a former devotee, also known as Swami Nithya Prabha, is a resident of San Jose in California and came in contact with Nityananda in 2007, and later became the head of the California branch of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam.

Douglas attended Nithyananda's enlightenment program held at Los Angeles ashram, where he said he paid Nithyananda a fee of $400,000 for the workshop and the enlightenment certificate. Nithyananda sexually exploited his American devotees, The American said in his complaint.

Nithyananda’s Life Bliss Foundation in the US has shut down after the scandal broke out. So, is his Vedic Temple in Los Angelese that is shut down to devotees! Lenin Karuppan, an insider who had recorded the sex tapes, and who had first filed a complaint with the Chennai Police Commissioner, has alleged that several foreign devotees have been duped by Nithyananda.

Also, a court in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu had issued a non-bailable warrant against him on Monday with the direction to the police to produce him before the court on May 20.

Swami Nityananda has rejected sex scandal allegations against him, and his lawyers said they are ready for a legal battle.

Lenin on Paramahamsa Nithyananda - Part Three

In the last seven years, the assets amassed by Nithyananda are estimated to be about Rs 2000 crores. There are over 1000 products on sales, including books, CDs, etc. Most of the books/CDs on sale at Nithyananda’s website are prized at $65 each. There are sales sites and shopping carts in his site, all selling spiritualism, meditation, etc. Besides, according to Lenin Karuppan, there is a company Nithyananda Imports and exports private limited that gets most of the money as donations that are exempt from tax, without regular shipping bills or export documentation. Therefore Karuppan feels that there is large scale tax-evasion going on, but it is to be seen by the Government/tax authorities.

Every Ashramite/ inmate of the Ashram is to sign a contract of secrecy or confidentiality with the Swami Nithyananda, Karuppan says. Excepting women who attend on the godman, no one is allowed in his bed room/ private quarters. So, no body knows what is going on there, or anything about the lifestyle of the godman. Asked when whether the women and men abused by Nithyananda have been forced into giving him sexual favours, Lenin Karuppan says, the swami uses his powers of hypnotism, mesmerism, Tantra techniques, etc., to win over the victims’ consent for sex. For the same reason, and for fear, none of the victims complain against the godman.

The whereabouts of Swami Nithyananda is not known, so is of Ranjitha. Karuppan told Sun TV in an interview that the swami can be in Delhi, Haridwar, Nepal, or in another safe Ashram, hiding from media, or to evade arrest. The police is investigating and a case is in the court. The people in the area around Bidadi, where his Ashram is situated is deadly against Nithyananda’s questionable practices. They have raided his ashram, set fire to his photos and other articles, and there was a fire engulfing some huts in the Ashram area.

As Lenin awaits the truth to emerge from the investigations, the CID is probing into the scandal involving the godman and Tamil actress Ranjitha. Though Lenin had made allegations of sodomy against swami Nithyananda, there is no video evidence to corroborate that charge, an official was quoted as saying.

The CID has conducted raids at the Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam ashram and searched his premises before seizing documents relating to his activities, including registers from the headquarters of the cult located at Kallugopahalli in the Bidadi Taluk of Ramanagara district of Karnataka, on the basis of a warrant obtained from the Ramanagara magistrate.

Also, the CID sleuths are going through the documents to unearth evidence related to his financial resources, land acquisition, and links with women brahmacharinis, sources said, adding, “We suspect he has destroyed some incriminating papers.” Sources said they are also trying to find out the role of Nithyananda’s secretary T Dhanasekaran, alias Sadhananda, alias Aiyya, in the land acquisition deals.

On April 12, reports from Chennai said that the Chennai High Court has dismissed a petition seeking a CBI investigation into allegations against Nithyananda Swami. In his order justice R Regupathy said, "When investigation of the case is still pending on the files of special agency at Karnataka and when nothing has been alleged against them, I cannot find any merit to transfer the case to CBI". This petition was filed by Nithya Dharmananda alias K Lenin. Based on his complaint the police had registered cases against Nithyananda for various offences under IPC including rape.

Also, there are reports suggesting that some cases are filed against the godman with American authorities in California/ USA for fraud and other charges.

Lenin on Paramahamsa Nithyananda - Part Two

According to Lenin Karuppan, who was made Swami Dharmananda by the self-proclaimed Paramahamsa Nithyananda, the godman claims himself as the God, not even an incarnation. Nithyananda claims, “I am Lord Krishna, I am Lord Shiva…” According to news reports, Lenin planted video cameras inside the bedrooms of Nithyananda with the help of one or more of the female victims. Once the godman got wind of that, he confronted Lenin, but he escaped from the Nithyananda Ashram, at Bidadi, near Bangalore (Bengaluru) and reached Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Ever since then the godman has been calling Lenin frantically to get hold of the proofs against him which Dharmananda had carried with him. He says, the godman has been threatening him, and sometimes pleading with him, saying that he is not threatening. The interviewer asked Dharmananda whether it is true that he has really quit as the head of the Ashram, his trusts, etc., as announced by Nithyananda. According to Lenin, it is ‘complete drama’, and his secretary who was managing the Ashram earlier is still managing it and there is no actual change in the management.

Asked why the godman is still not arrested by the police, Lenin claims that Nithyananda is in the good books of the politicians and hence, he is not arrested yet. The Karnataka police team has interrogated Lenin, and the Nithyananda Ashram near Bangalore was raided by the police and now the police are investigating the activities of the Ashram’s Branch in Malaysia.

A Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) datelined report on April 11 said that the Malaysian ashram linked to the scandal tainted Swami Nithyananda will cooperate with the Indian police probing the sex scandal. However, the Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam Ashram's spokesman K. Murthi said ‘he did not know how the Indian police could link the center’s activities with the scandal, as they were purely spiritual in nature’. He said Nithyananda had visited the ashram a few times and all activities at the Malaysian ashram had stopped since the scandal broke out last month. This is in reference to what earlier the Bangalore Police had said that it was planning to send a probe team to Malaysia to unearth any evidence at the ashram.

As ANI reported, "Through our investigation, we know there is an ashram in Malaysia (Penang). If there is credible information, we will send our officers to probe," said K.N. Yogappa, Superintendent of Police of the Bangalore Criminal Investigation Department (CID). A total of 30 sex tapes showing Swami Nithyananda indulging in sex with at least six different women have reportedly been submitted to the CID. The investigating officials, who conducted a raid on the Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam ashram at Bidadi on April 5 and 6, have so far interrogated 29 people, according to ANI.

Lenin on Paramahamsa Nithyananda - Part One

Watch this video of TV interview of Dharmananda alias Lenin Karuppan, the whistle-blower who opened the Pandora’s Box of Nithyananda's alleged sex scandals and alleged fraud! As per reports, there are 30 sex tapes in which no less than six women have been involved. Lenin was an insider in the Ashram, and Nithyananda's driver. According to Lenin, 30 to 40 women have been involved in sex with the godman, apart from men. The news made headlines when the very popular Indian TV network Sun TV aired the sex tape involving the popular Tamil actress Ranjitha. Also there are reports that Nithyananda sex tapes are doing brisk business in the black markets in Bangalore and other places. According to reports, Nithyananda’s Newest Technologies to Moksha (Salvation or Life Bliss) are now available at Rs 1000 per CD in the gray market. Watch this video, and look for Part Two of the interview that I will be posting after this.

Colors, Holi, Bangalore

Colors, Holi, Bangalore, originally uploaded by Sandip Debnath.