The Tamil Nadu police on Thursday, April 18, 2024, gave a clean chit to Isha Foundation and said that nearly all of the six volunteers who had gone missing from its yoga centre at the foothills of Vellingiri in Coimbatore district, had returned after having left the centre due to personal reasons.
The submission was made before a Division Bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and Sunder Mohan who were seized of a habeas corpus petition (HCP) filed by C. Thirumalai (56) of Kulasekarapatti in Tirunelveli district stating his brother C. Ganesan had been missing since March 2023.
According to the petitioner, his brother was serving as a volunteer at the yoga centre. Suddenly, on March 2 this year, the petitioner had received a phone call from the centre asking whether his brother had come home and only then did he realise that something was amiss.
Subsequently, the yoga centre’s administrator Dinesh lodged a complaint with the Alandurai police on March 5 and a man missing case was registered. Since his brother could not be traced out even after the registration of the First Information Report, the petitioner had moved the HCP.
When the matter was heard on Thursday, Additional Public Prosecutor E. Raj Thilak told the court that so far 36 persons, including some of the employees and volunteers in Isha Yoga Centre, had been questioned, but the police required some more time to file a status report in the case.
On being asked about a statement made by the APP during the last hearing, about other volunteers at the Foundation also going missing, the APP said, five more volunteers were found to be missing at that time but most of them had returned to the centre now and were found to have gone away due to personal reasons.
“Even in the present habeas corpus petition, the volunteer concerned has no other family member but for the petitioner who is his brother. If some time is given, we will expedite the steps to trace him out and file a status report,” the APP told the court.
After taking note of his submissions and finding that the petitioner’s counsel was not present, the judges directed the High Court registry to list the case under the caption ‘For Dismissal’ on June 7.
