Ramdev approached the top court seeking protection.
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned for July the hearing of a plea filed by yoga guru Ramdev to club FIRs lodged against him in different states over his alleged remarks that allopathy cannot cure Covid-19.
A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and SVN Bhatti granted two weeks’ to the states of Bihar and Chhattisgarh to inform it about the status of the first information reports (FIRs) and the chargesheet filed.
It also granted Ramdev’s counsel liberty to implead the complainants in the case before the top court and posted the matter to July.
Ramdev approached the top court seeking protection in criminal FIRs lodged against him in various states over his alleged remarks on efficacy of allopathy in the treatment of Covid-19.
The yoga guru’s plea sought clubbing of FIRs and the transfer of cases lodged against him to Delhi. The plea also sought a stay on the proceedings in multiple cases lodged against him and had also sought protection from coercive actions in FIRs lodged by Indian Medical Associations (IMA) Patna and Raipur branches and transfer the FIRs to Delhi.
Ramdev has been booked under Sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and other provisions of Disaster Management Act, 2005.
In a video, Ramdev in 2021 was allegedly heard saying, “Allopathy is a stupid science and medicines such as Remdesivir, Fabiflu, and other drugs approved by the Drugs Controller General of India have failed to treat Covid-19 patients.”
His remarks caused massive outrage and the IMA sent over a legal notice to him.
Police in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur had registered an FIR based on a complaint filed by the Raipur’s IMA unit against Ramdev for allegedly spreading “false” information about the medicines being used by the medical fraternity for the treatment of Covid-19.
As per the complaint, Ramdev has been allegedly propagating false information and his threatening statements on social media against medicines being used by the medical fraternity, Government of India, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and other frontline organisations in the treatment of Covid-19.
The complaint had said there are several videos of Ramdev on social media in which he had allegedly made such misleading remarks.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
