Justice S. Manikumar - Another Compromised Judge?

Even though the police had assisted the trustees in illegally stopping our food they abstained from assisting us to get back our food at Ashram Dining Room. In fact even our complaints for the assault on 22.07.2010 on us by some inmates were registered only under the Magistrate Court’s directions.

The trustees transparent acts of malice and duplicity came to light when knowing fully well and having received the letter dated 25.07.2010 from the Warden of Jenny Working Women’s Hostel, the trustees sent money orders to Jenny Hostel’s address for all of us, but their correspondences to us were all sent at the Ambabhikshu House address, wherein we were still residing.

We filed I.A.No.2094/2010 for restoring our food and all other facilities. Orders were passed allowing us to eat at Ashram Dining Room on 27.10.2010.

Trustees approached directly Justice K. Venkataraman and filed C.R.P. No.4219/2010 and Contempt No.1483/2010 against we five sisters. In fact in Contempt Petition No.1483/2010 Justice K. Venkataraman even named Mrs. R. Vasanthi (the upright judge of PDM who had passed order for restoring food and all other facilities). Thank god some sense prevailed and he did not pursue his vengeance against this most honorable judge.

However Justice K. Venkatarman went on harassing and intimidating my lawyer at Madras High Court, who with great difficulty managed to transfer both C.R.P. No.4219/2010 and Contempt No.1483/2010 to another bench consisting of Justice S. Manikumar.

Justice S. Manikumar also played foul because he was scared of his senior namely Justice K. Venkatarman and in any event corrupt judges always stick together and watch out each other’s back. Anyhow Justice S. Manikumar heard the arguments on both sides in April 2011. He did not record any contempt on our side but he took offence since we had used the word illegal while speaking of High Court order in our counter in the proceedings. We apologized for this mistake.

Generally High Courts and Supreme Court orders are dictated then and there in the open court, at least the directive part. But Justice Manikumar failed to follow procedure. He posted the matter for orders and after more than a year, past two summer vacations, he passed an even more malafide order dated 03.08.2012, not only upholding Justice K. Venkatarman’s order but modifying it still further and literally ordering eviction on an interim petition revision.

Manoj Das Gupta needs Women Props to Talk to Five Sisters

The trustees had illegally prevented us from having food at the Ashram Dining Room intimidating us with the presence of police. The Warden of Jenny Women’s Hostel had refused to accommodate us and had also informed Manoj Das Gupta about their reluctance to continue with whatever underhand undertaking that had taken place between them. However the trustees not only continued to deny and deprive we five sisters from partaking food from Dining Room, they failed to make any alternative provisions for our sustenance. Therefore we filed I.A.No.2094/2010 for restoring our food and all other facilities. Orders were passed allowing us to eat at Ashram Dining Room on 27.10.2010.

In the evening of 27.10.2010 we five sisters made urgent attempts to meet Manoj Das Gupta. We finally landed up at Manushri Chatterjee’s house, his girl-friend with whom he daily has his dinner. We rang the bell and none other than Manjushri opened the door. After several requests, during which her brother Swadesh came out and tried to shoo us away but we did not leave, Manoj Das Gupta finally came forward to talk us. We informed him that our food and all other amenities and facilities and as provided to every inmate had been restored to us on 27.10.2010 by the order passed in I.A. No.2094/2010 by the Hon’ble Judge of the Principal District Munsif at Pondicherry. At first he simply refused to believe us. Then when we read out the directive portion of order of restoration, he hid behind his façade of seemly obedience and questioned the veracity of the order.

Only when we categorically informed him that we were going to eat our dinner at Ashram Dining Room that he toned down and sarcastically replied, ‘one more day of not eating in Dining Room will not really kill you.’ What a thoroughly reprehensible statement! We answered him that only we knew with what great difficulty we had survived this ordeal without having food but he simply laughed mockingly. He then told us that we could only eat at Dining Room after he had consulted with the other trustees, his co-conspirators, and asked us to meet him the next day at Trust Office, inaptly named ‘Grace Office’ by the trustees since this office has brought total disgrace to the whole of Ashram community.

As instructed we went to Dis-“Grace Office” today at about 11.30 p.m. Once again Manoj Das Gupta met us surrounded and supported by women-inmates. Shilpi Shroff, Jahnavi Ravikanti, Abhipsa Nagda were some of the women we spotted standing behind him when Manoj Das Gupta informed us that we could go and have our lunch at Ashram Dining Room. We wanted in writing his statement but he assured us that there would be no problem and that no one would stop us.

However when we went to the Ashram Dining Room people took our photos, which is not permitted, and passed nasty comments. Thank God, at least nobody denied us food.

Trustees Maliciously Keep Denying Food to Five Sisters

Trustees send a letter at a wrongly mentioned address to Jayashree enclosing a non-certified copy of the malafide order dated 21.06.2010. We inform the trustees that the order is not verifiable and even as we are taking steps to obtain a certified copy, the trustees forcibly implement this order.

On 22.07.2010 we five sisters go for lunch. Using Pondicherry police to intimidate us, Matriprasad, Maya Khandelwal, Jahnavi Ravikanti, Purushottam Kothari and others assault Jayashree and Hemlata and deny us food at Ashram Dining Room. (See posting dated 22.07.2010).

On 23.07.2010 I meet the Warden of Jenny Working Women’s Hostel saying that our food has been stopped at Ashram Dining Room and we have been directed to reside at the hostel by the Madras High Court. Thereafter on 27.07.2010 I write a letter to the Warden asking her about our position vis-à-vis her hostel. In answer I get a letter from her dated 25.07.2010 which she has sent to the trustees stating that their representatives have misrepresented and mislead them and they are in no position to accommodate us.

In spite of receiving letter dated 25.07.2010 from the Warden of Jenny Women Hostel the trustees have failed to provide food to us till date.

Typed-copy of letter dated 25.07.2010 (Warden’s letter to trustees) is produced below.

A Glaring Example of Collusion Between Pondicherry Police and Ashram Trustees

On 21.06.2010, without our knowledge and in our absence Justice K. Venkataraman of Madras High Court passes perverse orders directing we five sisters to accommodate ourselves at Jenny Working Women’s Hostel. Thereafter the trustees send Jayashree an uncertified copy of this order at wrong address. We cannot verify its authenticity and so we take steps to get this order by ourselves from the Madras High Court.

Meanwhile we were secretly informed that trustees are going to stop our food and so on 22.07.2010 at about 12 p.m. together we five sisters go for lunch at Ashram Dining Room. There we see police constables men and women, as well as Matriprasad, Purushottam Kothari, Maya Khandelwal, Jahnavi Ravikanti, among others, waiting for us. The inmates come forward to forcibly stop us and beat Jayashree and me in the process. The police are simply watching the show. We are denied food at the Ashram Dining. We go towards the Lt. Governor’s house to seek a meeting with him. We are chased by the police and land up instead at the Chief Secretariat. By then media persons have arrived and after much ado the Chief Secretary Mr. Chandra Mohan gives us an appointment.

We apprise Mr. Chandra Mohan of how illegally and forcibly the trustees have implemented the order through assault and police intimidation. He calls the SP North one N.T. Sivadasan. Mr. Sivadasan tries to defend himself by spinning a long yarn when in fact he has received money from the trustees for helping them to stop our food. We charged him with this in front of Mr. Chandra Mohan and he did not defend himself. He is given a royal dressing down from Mr. Chandra Mohan, Chief Secretary, but the damage is done and they are both unwilling to undo the damage viz. reversing the denial of food in the Ashram Dining Room.

We have no food to eat. For how long? Anybody's guess.

Justice K. Venkataraman Illegally Modifies his Own Orders - Misuse of Article 227

For a second time trustees filed another clarification petition in M.P. No.2/2008 in C.R.P. 3314/2007 to further clarify the unambiguous High Court Order dated 04.08.2008.

The trustees misrepresented to Justice K. Venkataraman that on enquiry by them they have found that ‘International Guest House’ was unwilling to accommodate the five sisters. They produced the letter received by them from ‘International Guest House’ but failed to produce their own letter which they claimed to have written to the guest house management. This alleged letter has never been made public by them obviously because no such letter exists!

When the trustees had informed us that ‘International Guest House were unwilling to accommodate us, we had asked for rooms at ‘Seaside Guest House’. They were even more furious by this demand and enraged, they proceeded to file their second clarification without even bothering to reply to us.

Justice Venkataraman suo motto appointed Advocate Commissioner, who submitted his report on 23.12.2008 before Justice K. Venkataraman. His report completely exposed the trustees and their devious manipulations and their ill-intentions towards us. Not one accommodation, as cited by the trustees, met the criteria set by Justice K. Venkataraman. All the guest houses chosen by us fit within the stipulated criteria, ‘International Guest House’ being the most suitable and which had even agreed to provide accommodation. (See posting dated 30.12.2008)

Meanwhile we had also written to the Chief Justice of Madras High Court, Justice H.L. Gokhale, and asked him to transfer our case from Justice Venkataraman’s court to anyone else because he was prejudiced in favor of the trustees and because of him another inmate was thrown out on the street and was living on the charity of the church. (What a shame on the trustees that inmates, who have dedicated their entire lives to the Ashram, are forced to live on the charity of the church!) (See posting dated 03.10.2014)

This letter had made Justice K. Venkatarman spitting mad and also because the Advocate Commissioner’s report was so damaging to the trustees, Justice K. Venkataraman became vindictive towards us and repeatedly berated and belittled our lawyer in the open court. His hostility became unbearable and with a heavy heart we asked our lawyer to report ‘no instructions’ and give up vakalat. We were assured that before the case came up for orders, we would be issued with summons either from the court or from the trustees intimating to us the date of appearance. No such thing happened.

More than 1 ½ years after submission of the Advocate Commissioner’s report, Justice K. Venkatarman suddenly brought up the matter, without issuing us summons either through court or through the trustees. Then without taking into account a third party’s objective findings as directed by the court, viz. the Advocate Commissioner’s report, Justice K. Venkatarman proceeded to pass his third impugned order dated 21.06.2010 in M.P. No.2/2008 in C.R.P. No.3314/2007, illegally modifying his own order for a second time. We are directed to accommodate ourselves at ‘Jenny Working Women’s Hostel’.

By repeatedly entertaining the frivolous petitions filed by the trustees, Justice K. Venkataraman not only  lowered the stature of the High Court to that of a Trial Court and misused his discretionary powers of superintendence under Article 227 of the Constitution, but he also illegally modified two times his own order under the guise of clarification resulting in unsought for eviction proceedings.

10 Years of Needless Battle Protracted by Trustees

In the interim junction petition in I.A. No.935/2001 filed in O.S. No.253/2001 challenging the illegal show cause notice issued by the trustees, due to some technical difficulty a vague order was passed. Trustees and my four elder sisters, both sides challenged this order before the Hon’ble Madras High Court. C.R.P. No. 2230/2001 & No. 2534/2001 in O.S.No.253/2001 were preferred and Mr. Justice P.D. Dinakaran, without appreciating the merits of the case, passed even more vague orders and confused the whole issue still further. By a common order dated 29.10.2001 both the CRPs were disposed off.

Thereafter the suit went for trial prejudiced by this vague order of the Madras High Court and subsequently the suit was dismissed on 09.03.2007. My sisters preferred A.S. No.24/2007. By then five sisters’ case in O.S. No.409/2005 had already been filed challenging their illegal expulsion. So the trustees made an even greater jilebi and further clouded the understanding of the already confused judge. Obviously other factors, best left unsaid, were also instrumental for the outcome. On 09.04.2010, exactly 10 years from the day of the institution of O.S. No.24/2007, our appeal was dismissed. Since we were so bogged down with the issues relating to O.S. No.409/2005 we desisted from further appealing before the Hon’ble High Court.

So for about 10 long years we were constrained to fight a needless battle to satisfy the whims and fancies of the trustees attempting to prevent their highhandedness.

Advocate Commissioner’s Report Exposes Trustees

On 19.12.2008 Justice K. Venkataraman suo motto appointed an Advocate Commissioner and directed the trustees and we five sisters to choose three places of alternate accommodation each. He directed the Advocate Commissioner to visit all these premises and file his report regarding safety, security and suitability of the accommodations.

Advocate Commissioner, as directed, visited Pondicherry. Our lawyer was present along with us. But from trustees’ side a lawyer, not even on record with regard to our case, was present. Matriprasad and Purushottam Kothari tried to represent the trustees but the Advocate Commissioner refused to allow them to be present since they did not have any authorization letter of representation.

Once again the trustees had acted in their highhanded manner and named five choices of alternate accommodation. We had come prepared only with three. Advocate Commissioner showed leniency towards them and thus the enquiry began.

At every guest house/boarding house Advocate Commissioner was accompanied by the two advocates and we five sisters. Each Warden/Manager let us inspect the premises except Jenny Working Women’s Hostel. The warden categorically stated that there was no vacancy and allowed none of us to inspect the premises. Another Manager, on seeing us, told the Advocate Commissioner that it would not be prudent on his part to accommodate us since we were not used to this lifestyle of working women’s hostel. A third Warden expressed her unwillingness but said that the girls were good but not the trustees, who misrepresented and mislead other people and who were harassing the girls.

The fifth accommodation which the trustees had chosen was an unfinished structure and no one in-charge was present to show us around. The Advocate Commissioner did not mention this place in his investigation report because there was nothing to report. Later we came to know that it was a wing of Jenny Working Women’s hostel.

The accommodations cited by the trustees were for working women who were out of hostel during the whole day and only needed a roof overhead to spend the night. Most of the women accommodated there left for the weekend to visit their nearby situated homes. But none of the five sisters were working women and the thought of shifting to these alternate accommodations seemed like our worst nightmare.

Since the trustees had only cited pigeon holes as alternate accommodations for us, we requested the Advocate Commissioner to visit the Ashram accommodation provided to us so that he could better appreciate and compare the unbelievable differences between what was chosen and what had been provided. But because the trustees vehemently opposed our proposal through their present lawyer, Advocate Commissioner could not grant our wish. (Also see posting dated 20.12.2008).

Typed-Copy of the Report is produced below

Warden of 'Peace Society' States that Trustees are Harassing the Sisters

A most interesting event happened when the Advocate Commissioner visited ‘Peace Society’, a women’s hostel cited by the trustees for inspection. The Warden of ‘Peace Society’ took the Commissioner aside and reported to him that even previously the girls had been ordered to stay here. She told him that one Purushottam Kothari and his wife Maya had visited her with an elderly person called Batti. These people claimed to be our brother, sister-in-law and father. They represented that their sisters were coming from northern India in a few days and would be here for a few months. Since women hostel was a safe place and they had heard highly about this particular one, they desired that their sisters should be accommodated under her care. They had even paid some advance.

The Warden continued her story and said later she came to know from her friend working at ‘Department for Women and Child Development’, Pondicherry, (DWCD) that these sisters were inmates of Ashram who were facing sexual harassment at the hands of the trustees and that Govt. of Pondicherry was investigating the matter. Her friend also told her that these people had come from the trustees side to misrepresent, mislead and her soft-soap her since they wanted to put up a good image before the pending investigation.

The Warden told the Commissioner that the trustees were harassing the sisters and that we were good girls. But in view of the pending litigation it would not be fair to the other already resident-women if she gave us accommodation in her hostel.

Advocate Commissioner mentioned this comment in his report dated 22.12.2008. 

International Guest House as Second Alternate Accommodation

The trustees did not like our choice of alternate accommodation as ‘Golconde Guest House’ and they definitely did not pay for our expenses of daily needs and necessities as asked for. So they rushed back to Justice K. Venkataraman and filed a petition for clarification in M.P. No.1/2008 in C.R.P. No. 3314/2007 for clarification of the order dated 29.01.2008.

When the so-called clarification petition was heard, Justice K. Venkataraman, had been completely won over by the trustees charismatic façade consisting of wealth, piety and false spirituality. He was hostile towards us and reprimanded us for delaying the smooth compliance of his order. Thereafter on 04.08.2008, under the guise of clarification, Justice K. Venkataraman modified his own Order dated 29.01.2008. We were directed to reside outside all Ashram-owned premises.

Once again we complied with his unjust malafide order. We requested to be accommodated at ‘International Guest House’, which belongs to Sri Aurobindo Society and not to the Ashram. We also requested to be given Rs.275/- (for food) and Rs.125/- (for basic expenses) per day for each one of us. The trustees manipulated the management of ‘International  Guest House’ and asked us to find another place where food was included along with lodging.

So, we asked for rooms at ‘Sea Side Guest House’. This guest house also belongs to Sri Aurobindo Society and not to Ashram. The trustees were enraged by our reasonable request because even at the first instance they never wished to provide us with any alternate accommodation, their wish was simply to throw us out on the streets because we protested against sexual harassment and because we abstained from entertaining their henchmen. 

The trustees are cunningly moving towards their goal using legal means with the active help of Justice K. Venkataraman. Let us watch their next malicious move.

Joint Trial Ordered

As the starting point of all our cases is the assault on Jayashree, we felt that it would be better if our cases O.S. No.668/2002 (pending before I Additional Musif, Pondicherry) and O.S. No.409/2005 (pending before Principal District Munsif, Pondicherry) could be jointly tried to meet the ends of justice. We had suffered enough and realized the chaos the trustees created through their misrepresentations and irrelevant documentation in order to clog the proceedings and confuse the issues. Therefore we decided to file a transfer petition for conducting joint trial.

T.O.P. No.85/2007 was filed before the Principal District Judge, Pondicherry for transferring O.S. No.668/2002 from I ADM to be tried together with O.S. No.409/2005 at PDM. The trustees at first refused to appear and were set exparte. When directions were issued in C.R.P. No.3314/2007 for the orders to be passed in the pending T.O.P. trustees filed a petition to permit them to present their objections. Their petition was allowed but the trustees were fined. Ashram Trust and four trustees, (Veda Prakash Johar excluded) was fined Rs.75/- each for failing to respect the court and from abstaining to appear. Trustees paid Rs.375/-. Veda Prakash Johar remained exparte since the trustees had illegally taken away his trusteeship.

On 23.09.2008 order was passed in T.O.P. for joint trial.