HC allows preservation of 'godman's' body

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today allowed the preservation of the body of Nurmahal-based Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (DJJS) founder Ashutosh Maharaj, who was declared clinically dead in January 2014.
The DJJS management has been claiming that he was in a 'samadhi' (deep meditation). His body has been kept in deep freezer by his followers inside the dera premises.
While sanctioning the Dera management's plea to preserve the body, a division bench headed by Justice Mahesh Grover also directed regular medical inspection of the body.
The court, however, made it clear that the dera management shall have to pay for the expenses related to medical examination of the body by a team of government doctors.

The court passed the verdict, setting aside an earlier single bench order, that had held that the body be cremated.
The DJJS had challenged the earlier verdict.

Refusing to cremate the body, Ashutosh Maharaj's followers have been claiming that modern scientific mechanical instruments are incapable of detecting life symptoms in a Yogi who is in 'samadhi' (deep meditation) nor can any scientific instrument gauge deep meditation.
A single bench, in its December 1, 2014 order, had directed that Ashutosh Maharaj's body should be cremated within 15 days by a committee, comprising Jalandhar district magistrate, Senior Superintendent of Police, Municipal Corporation commissioner, Chief Medical Officer and the Sub Divisional Magistrate concerned.

Rejecting the DJJS's samadhi theory, the single bench had earlier held that retaining the body of Maharaj under refrigeration for an uncertain period being in 'samadhi' is not a practice protected by their religion.
The clinically dead sect head is lying in a deep freezer since January 28, 2014, at the DJJS headquarters in Nurmahal, Jalandhar.
The court while pronouncing the judgment today said that it chooses to refrain from interfering in religious matters.
The court dismissed the plea of the sect head's purported son Dalip Kumar Jha who had demanded that he be handed over the body.
The court observed that he can approach a civil court with his plea for a DNA test.