The Supreme Court on Friday closed proceedings in the habeas corpus petition by a man who alleged that his two major daughters were being held captive at Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation in Coimbatore and noted the women had informed it that they were living there “voluntarily and without any coercion”.
Closing the proceedings, the Supreme Court also clarified that “the only aspect of the matter which had been dealt with appropriately in these proceedings pertains to the habeas corpus petition and this order will close the ambit of that.”
The habeas corpus petition seeks to produce persons who are believed to be missing or unlawfully detained. The Supreme Court initially upheld the appeal to the Madras High Court, which followed the man’s case.
On October 3, the Supreme Court stayed the probe into the alleged illegal detention of a person by the Tamil Nadu police, directing them to cease any action based on the High Court’s earlier orders.
A three bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra also said the Madras High Court exceeded its jurisdiction by keeping the matter alive even after it recorded the statements of the two women.
“We are today only concerned with an order which was passed by the High Court in a habeas corpus petition, where statements were recorded of the two corpus. At the end of that, the High Court should have closed the matter. Instead, the High Court proceeded. That exceeded the jurisdiction of the High Court,” Justice Pardiwala remarked orally.
The bench also accepted the status report submitted by the police in response to the earlier directive. The court held that there was no need to go into the matter further as the grounds of the petition had been properly disposed of. The decision came after the Isha Foundation challenged a high court order requiring the police to compile and submit a case against the foundation.
