The Supreme Court of India was informed this week that the Chhattisgarh Police has filed a closure report in the case against yoga guru and Patanjali Ayurved founder Swami Ram Dev, who had faced criminal proceedings for his controversial comments on allopathic medicine during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The update was conveyed to a Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.
Appearing for Baba Ram Dev, the senior advocate Siddharth Dave urged the Court to formally note this development. The Bench, however, refused to record it in the order, observing that Ram Dev’s plea seeking consolidation of multiple FIRs had become largely academic, with only one case in Bihar still active. Dave nonetheless flagged the possibility of the matter resurfacing if the complainant were to challenge the closure report, and requested clarity on the Bihar FIR before the petition is disposed of.
During the hearing, SG Mehta submitted that the FIRs registered in both Chhattisgarh and Bihar appeared to have been sponsored complaints, allegedly filed at the instance of vested interests. The Bench adjourned the proceedings for a later date after taking stock of these arguments,
The controversy traces back to 2021, when a video of Ram Dev surfaced in which he claimed that lakhs had died due to allopathic medicines administered during the pandemic. Though he subsequently retracted the statement, the remarks provoked widespread outrage and triggered multiple FIRs across states.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) had also approached the Supreme Court, accusing him of conducting a smear campaign against modern medicine and COVID vaccinations. In August 2022, the Court had pulled up Ram Dev for disparaging doctors, while the Delhi High Court had separately restrained him from making misleading claims.
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