3 May 2018
After a baseless writ Petition was filed by a third party, Paramahamsa Nithyananda was prohibited from entering Madurai Aadheenam of which He is the successor. Though the petition itself is invalid and violates the constitution, Judge Mahadevan upheld the decision and even threatened Paramahamsa Nithyananda arrest, demanding He give up His title as 293rd Pontiff of Madurai Aadheenam.
In an attempt to thwart that ruling, Jagatalapratapan, interlopers who had filed a Writ Petition in 2012, acting on behalf of many interested parties including other Aadheenams filed a Writ Petition WP 19004 of 2017, asking that Paramahamsa Nithyananda and His disciples are prevented from entering the Madurai Aadheenam Mutt.
The Writ is completely devoid of merit both in terms of the fact that the petitioner has no locus standi in the matter and that the Writ Petitions cannot be made against individuals but only against Statutory Government entities. Furthermore, the matter in question is already sub-judice via many civil suits as mentioned above. Yet, Justice Mahadevan in WMP 15366 of 2017 passed an interim injunction without hearing the defendant side, prohibiting Paramahamsa Nithyananda and His disciples from interfering with the Madurai Aadheenam Mutt. He even barred the 10 million followers of Paramahamsa Nithyananda from entering the Madurai Aadheenam and also the temples associated with it! Even the HR&CE had filed a counter in the case asking for the WP to be dismissed and saying that the interim order was unwarranted.
Apart from admitting the Writ against all precedence, Justice Mahadevan next threatened Paramahamsa Nithyananda illegally with arrest demanding a written affidavit giving up his rights as the 293rd Pontiff of the Madurai Aadheenam. This was widely reported in many of the news media.
While this is no accusation on part of his neutrality, it came to be known later on that the Hon’ble Justice was very close to some of the Aadheenams that were part of the Madurai Aadheenam retrieval committee. It is a well-known saying in legal parlance that ‘Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done’. And given this maxim one would have expected the Hon’ble Justice to recuse himself from the case to serve the cause of justice.
Eventually, in spite of innumerable points against the validity of the petition and the constitutional violation of preventing one from entering his place of worship, on 3 May 2018 the Court passed an order upholding the Writ and preventing Paramahamsa Nithyananda and His disciples from entering the Madurai Aadheenam! Not only that, the order contained many references to matters of fact and decisions on religion which cannot be gone into by a Writ Court which does not look into any evidence. Based only on “facts” presented by the Petitioner – who is a self admitted novice and just a devotee – the Court ordered that Paramahamsa Nithyananda’s dismissal was valid. It also concluded, again without a shred of evidence based on random media news which seemed to have influenced everyone, that Paramahamsa Nithyananda had many criminal and civil cases against him and that there was a problem with his “character”. Such unfounded statements unrelated to fact were completely unbecoming of the highest court of the State.