Koregaon Park police on Thursday served summons to Mukesh Sarda as one of the administrators of the Osho International Meditation Resort.
Published in The Times of India on January 10, 2014 by Neha Madaan, TNN
PUNE: The Koregaon Park police on Thursday served summons to Mukesh Sarda, one of the administrators of the Osho International Meditation Resort (Osho Ashram), asking him to appear before them on Friday.
A first information report (FIR) was filed by a group of Osho’s followers against the management alleging that the administrators had forged the will of their spiritual mentor to use the rights and income from Osho’s intellectual property.
Rajendra Mulik, inspector (crime) of Koregaon Park police station, who is handling the case, said, “We have sent summons to Mukesh Sarda, who looks after all the work of the Osho Ashram in India. We are planning to talk to all the administrators whose names appear in the FIR, one by one. It is not possible to extract information from all of them at one go. I have asked Sarda to appear before us for inquiry on January 10 and am waiting for his response.”
When TOI contacted Sarda, he said the matter was sub-judice and refused to comment any further.
Police officials told TOI that the administrators were facing a case in the US and standing trail in Spain over the copyrights of Osho’s works. An allegedly forged will was produced in a Spanish court. “A group of Osho’s disciples in India, who got to know of this, filed an FIR against some of Osho Ashram’s administrators,” said an official from the Koregaon Park police station.
Police are looking for the original of the forged will. “It was with one of the administrators in the US, from where it was submitted in the court proceedings in Spain. We are trying to recover the original which would be given to government-approved handwriting experts to analyse the signature for authenticity. We cannot analyse the signature from a photostat copy of the will which is currently with us,” the official added.
Yogesh Thakkar (Swami Prem Geet) on behalf of Osho Friends Foundation, Pune, had filed the FIR. “The will was prepared in Pune and was presented by the trustees before the court 23 years after Osho’s demise. As per the will that they have produced, all six administrators are authorized to use the rights and income from Osho’s intellectual property. This will is forged because Osho never left behind a will in the first place.” said Thakkar.
Tussle over will
On December 8, city-based Osho Friends Foundation had filed an FIR against six administrators of Osho Ashram, alleging that they had produced a forged will of Osho, dated October 15, 1989, Poona, bearing his fake signature.
Koregaon Park police officials had issued a notice to the ashram authorities to produce the original copy of the will. Currently, cases are pending against the six administrators and others in the Bombay high court as well as in the courts of Europe.
While the case pending in a Europe court is to declare the alleged forged will as null and void, the one in Bombay high court has sought an inquiry into the alleged illegal transfer of funds of over Rs 300 crore by the trustees of Osho International Foundation in the names of their private companies.
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