HC to hear on Osho Trust's Rs 50 cr property 'gift' on 24 Apr

by Abhay Vaidya  It won’t be easy for the trustees of Osho International Foundation’s (OIF) prime properties in Pune’s Koregaon Park area to dispose some of these properties through strange and mysterious gift deeds, one after the other. Acting on a petition filed by two disciples of Osho, of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Bombay High Court issued an order last month placing restrictions on transactions relating to plot CTS No 3, Koregaon Park, with an estimated market value of Rs 50 crore. Last year, this plot, measuring 5,387 square metres, was actually gifted by the OIF to Darshan Trust, an unknown entity in Delhi. Justice GS Godbole in his order said that all transactions with regards to this property shall be subject to the final outcome of the writ petition filed by Osho disciples Yogesh Thakkar (Swami Prem Geet) and Kishor Raval (Swami Prem Anadi). [caption id=“attachment_282354” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Image courtesy Oshoworld.com”]  [/caption] In their petition, Thakkar and Raval have challenged the Mumbai Charity Commissioner MK Chaure’s decision of 17 March 2011 approving OIF’s proposal to gift the plot to Darshan Trust. Besides the Charity Commissioner, the other respondents named in the petition are the OIF through its trustees Mukesh Sarda, Devendrasingh Deval, Sadhana Belapurkar and Lal Pratap Singh; and Darshan Trust and two of its trustees, Vidya Khubchandani and Anand Kumar Awasthi. The outcome of this case, whose next hearing is on 24 April, holds high importance for the community of Osho’s followers within and outside India as there is deep suspicion about what is happening in Pune. One group of followers has accused the OIF trustees of mischievously trying to hand over trust properties of high commercial value to a prominent Pune builder with close ties to a leading politician from Maharashtra. The OIF has denied these allegations while maintaining a stony silence in dealing with the press. The properties controlled by the OIF in Pune include the samadhi of Osho where his ashes have been interred and is of deep spiritual and sentimental value to his followers. The Osho Commune, renamed as the Osho International Meditation Resort after Osho’s death on 19 January 1990, is located at Koregaon Park amidst a cluster of other Osho properties of the OIF spread over 25-30 acres. Thakkar and Raval raised an alarm some months ago after they discovered that the OIF had quietly moved applications with the Charity Commissioner, Mumbai, to allow it to gift properties to Darshan Trust. While the proposal to gift plot CTS No 3  was already approved by the Charity Commissioner, another proposal to gift plot No 22 to the same trust was pending with him. The petitioners have pointed out that the trustees of Darshan Trust, namely, Vidya Khubchandani, Lal Pratap Singh and Anand Kumar Awasthi had previously served as OIF trustees. Thakkar and Raval also questioned OIF’s claim that the property gifts were being made as “maintaining and managing them had become a burden” and because these properties were “excess space”, not needed by the OIF. The petitioners have cited applications made by the OIF to the Charity Commissioner seeking permission to mortgage its others properties to raise loans of Rs 6 crore from Corporation Bank. They have questioned that if the OIF is in need of money, why is it gifting property worth Rs 50 crore to Darshan Trust? This is the first time that Osho’s followers have taken their property dispute to the high court and are seeking legal intervention in the affairs of this trust controlled by a group of foreigners, namely, Michael O’Byrne (Swami Jayesh), John Andrews alias George Meredith (Swami Prem Amrito) and Darcy O’Byrne (Swami Yogendra). The petitioners have alleged that “all the decisions made by these three persons are obediently followed by all the trustees and carried out by Mukesh Sarda, alias Swami Mukesh Bharati.”