Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday held that it was satisfied with the adherence of norms relating to conferment of the Padma Vibhushan, one of the country’s highest civilian awards, on Isha Yoga founder Jaggi Vasudev.
Consequently, the First Bench comprising of Chief Justice K R Shriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy dismissed a writ petition seeking a direction to the Union Government to revoke the award given to him on the grounds that the Isha Foundation was facing multiple charges and cases in the court.
The petition was filed by one Vetriselvan who had contended that Jaggi Vasudev did not have a clean record when his name was considered for the prestigious award. According to him, the awardee was not a law abiding citizen and cases were pending in the High Court regarding construction of unauthorised buildings at the Isha Yoga Centre located on the foothills of Velliangiri foothills in Coimbatore.
Claiming that the Isha Yoga founder was continuing such activities, he said, “Such a person can never be awarded the Padma Vibhushan. Even the prestige of the country is at stake because of such conferment.” Even now, the Isha Foundation faced a habeas corpus petition but it was closed by the Supreme Court.
However, Additional Solicitor General Sundaresan submitted that the Central Government had not received any adverse inputs from the intelligence agencies before the conferment of the award. The Padma Vibhushan was therefore conferred upon Jaggi Vasudev on April 13, 2017 by then President Pranab Mukherjee. After hearing both counsels, the court dismissed the petition.
