Article by Shantanu Guha Ray in Newsroom Post published on 22 June 2023.
One group consists of devotees who are opposing the sale of two plots of land at the Osho ashram in Pune’s upmarket Koregaon neighbourhood. The other group includes members of Osho International Foundation (OIF) that claims they are the only successor of the property and want to sell the land to raise cash to run the commune.
[…] On May 2, 2023, Venugopal represented the Maharashtra Charity Commissioner on behalf of interveners opposing the sale of two plots of Osho Ashram, Pune which is currently managed by OIF.
Interestingly, advocate Venugopal is not just a lawyer but also a Osho sanyasi. In his first appearance he sought permission to cross examine the Trustee in the Charity Commissioner Office. OIF’s advocate opposed it. As a result, the Joint Charity Commissioner, Ms RU Malvankar kept the order reserved but eventually gave permission on May 16, 2023 to cross examine the trustees. The trustees went to the Bombay High Court to seek relief from the Charity Commissioner’s order.
On June 15, 2023, Venugopal opposed the writ petition filed by OIF for not cross examining the trustees. Senior advocates representing OIF tried hard to delay the proceedings but were eventually told by the judge that they should not worry if their client had done nothing wrong.
“It necessarily contemplates that both parties be given a fair opportunity to lead evidence which is not limited to the extent of filing affidavits but goes to the extent of examining witnesses on oath and subjecting themselves to cross-examination,” said judge NR Borkar in the order.
This, claim those in the know, is the biggest problem because the trustees will have to answer many questions in the Charity Commissioner Office. […]
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