Madras High Court sets aside 2012 inquiry into sexual assault allegations against Aurobindo Ashram Trust

The Madras High Court recently set aside an inquiry against the Aurobindo Ashram Trust (Trust) that had been initiated by the Pondicherry District Collector in 2012 following allegations of sexual assault and misappropriation of funds among other things made by an inmate, Vishnu Lalit Singh, and a then Member of Legislative Assembly Ashok Anand. .In a judgement passed on February 24, Justice Anita Sumanth of the Madras High Court set aside the notice issued by the District authorities to the Trust on October 1, 2012, informing it of the commencement of the inquiry.Justice Sumanth disposed of the petition filed by the Trust that had been pending since 2012 for quashing the notice for restraining the district authorities from conducting any inquiry. The High Court said that while "normally," it would not have interfered with any statutory inquiry, especially one that was looking into serious allegations, in the present case, the original complainants had stopped pursuing the allegations and a host of other charges had taken place over the years. Therefore, there existed no justification for continuing with the inquiry, the Court said. "The petitioner has, in the interests of disclosure, placed on record several unsavoury events and incidents that had taken place in the Ashram premises. These include allegations of sexual harassment, suicide of some inmates and serious malpractices in the functioning of the school run by the Ashram. Without doubt, these situations call for swift and serious action. However, these instances are of yesteryears contemporaneous with the filing of earlier writ petitions and civil suits that have been, after detailed discussion, been closed in favour of the petitioner trust by the courts. I see no reason to re-visit those instances now," the High Court said. The Court also noted that soon after the present writ petition was filed by the Trust in 2012, the High Court had appointed Justice PR Raman, a retired judge of the Kerala High Court to conduct an independent inquiry into the allegations made against the Trust. The inquiry was subsequently taken over by Justice TL Vishwantha Iyer, another retired judge of the Kerala High Court. While Justice Iyer submitted an interim report in 2013 and got an extension to complete the inquiry, he died before the inquiry could be concluded. The 2012 writ petition remained pending since then and it was finally listed before Justice Sumanth for final disposal this year. Taking into account the above facts, Justice Sumanth rejected a request made by Additional Government Pleader, Puducherry, B Ramaswamy to permit the revenue officials to continue with the inquiry that was stalled due to the pending writ petition. "The trajectory of events, especially the fact that the petitioner trust has been the target of multi-pronged litigations before several fora, do leave me with the impression that there is no justification and no provocation as on date to continue the proceedings under the impugned notice," the High Court said. Advocate CA Diwakar appeared for the petitioner Trust. Additional Government Pleader B Ramasamy appeared for the respondent Puducherry District Collector and other concerned district authorities..[Read Judgement]