The Supreme Court ordered Swami Nithyananda to undergo a medical test and face trial in the ‘rape case’ registered against him in a court in Bangalore. Although the potency test was completed within five hours and ended around 1 p.m., Nithyananda came out of the hospital in a wheelchair around 4.50 p.m., and was rushed into an ambulance and taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory, Madiwala. Police personnel and his associates surrounded him to prevent the media from taking photographs.
Swami Nithyananda is popularly described as a godman, guru, and Mahamandaleshwar of Mahanirvani Akhada. He is also the founder of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam headquartered in Bengaluru, India. According to Nithyananda, he was born as Rajasekaran on January 1, 1978 in Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu. His date of birth according to the US visa issued to him from the US Consulate in Chennai in 2003, was March 13, 1977. He says that when he was around 9 years old, he regularly met Arunagiri Yogiswara, an incarnation of Lord Shiva, at his Samadhi within the premises of Arunachala temple at Tiruvannamalai and that they talked for hours day after day. When he was about 12 years old, a meditation technique given to him by Annamalai Swamigal resulted in his “awaken[ing] to the realisation that I was one with the whole of Existence and everything was I!” Nithyananda says that the effects of this experience, that he now calls satori, lasted for about three days and was the beginning of a new phase of spiritual development in his life. He says that it has enabled him to see all around him whenever he wishes.
A video that apparently showed Nithyananda engaging in sexual acts with women, allegedly Tamil film actress Ranjitha, was broadcasted on the Tamil television channel Sun News on 2 March, 2010. This incident also resulted in protests outside the ashram during which a fire broke out. While the channels stand by their claim that the film clip is original, Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam’s website insists that the videos are morphed and defamatory in nature. On March 4, Nithyananda gave an application to a civil court in Chennai, seeking an injunction blocking further broadcasting of the video material. Responding to the media reports, Nithyananada said that he was in a “state of samadhi” (trance) when the video was made and that the tape had been “misinterpreted, morphed and manipulated. After release of the video, Bidadi police registered cases under Indian Penal Code sections 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 506 (threat to life) and 420 (cheating).
After evading summons for 49 days, Nithyananda was arrested on April 21, 2010 in Arki in Himachal Pradesh by Bangalore Police with the help of the police of Himachal and the interrogation was done in Bangalore by the CID of the Bangalore Police. On 11 June 2010, Nithyananda was granted bail, and was released from judicial custody after 52 days in Ramanagara sub-jail. In October 2010, the person who released the video, his very own driver was charged by Bidadi police under several sections of the IPC with accusations of defaming Nithyananda through distributing the video. Subsequently, in July 2011, Nithyananda’s ashram filed a complaint against Sun TV Network, claiming they were the agents behind what the ashram alleged was a morphed video and the repeated telecasting of it.
On February 2013, the High Court of Karnataka squashed two FIRs against Nithyananda, one pertaining to his activities at the ashram and the other over alleged assault on a pro-Kannada leader. Loafing chartered personalities like self-styled Nithyanandas are creating blots and tarnishing image and faith of a pure selfless Hindu culture and dharmas ruining the morals and Divine Hindu spiritualism. No self-styled Gods hereafter will be recognised by Hindu religion due to such disrespect and atrocious acts which spoil our faith in religion which is so divine and selfless where such mean ordinary misdeeds of man has no place. These self-styled bogus Godmens corrupt public mind and challenge the whole Hindu Community and religion at large weakening to threat foundations of such an ancient Hindu dharma culture. Hindu dharma is liberal in its approach and addresses every Hindu individual not like other religions and never preaches such misdeeds and destruction to any other faiths.
Don’t know what to say about this vague law for “potency test.” I mean what is going to come out of it? The fact is he is not a genuine guru or swami but a counterfeit whichever way you look at it. What if, by sheer stroke of genius, the test indicates that he is “abnormal” and that he is genetically pre-disposed to an asexual lifestyle? Does that mean he is absolved of other fraudulent incidences of outright falsification, forgery etc.? When will the gullible people learn?
