Criminal Contempt Charges against Members of Madhu Pandit's GBC

BY: SUN CORRESPONDENT

Sep 06, 2010 — BANGALORE, INDIA (SUN) — The Supreme Court of India initiating Criminal Contempt Charges against Members of Madhu Pandit's GBC.

To see court documents related to the case against Bangalore GBC members, please go to Courtnic.nic.in. (This document only works in Internet Explorer.) Once on the page, on the left side click on "Case number." Then for case type, select "SLP (Criminal) ." Then put in the case # 5525, and the year should be 2010. Then click submit. You should get a window giving the details of the case.

You will notice that Madhu Pandit's name is not mentioned, only his assistants Stoka Krishna and others are mentioned. The reason for that is explained below.

To get some background on the case please read:

Madhu Pandit's side denies involvement:

Justice Manjunatha accuses Madhu Pandit dasa of "Bench Hunting"

Contempt charges against MPD dropped, this explains why his name is not mentioned in the criminal contempt case.

The following text recently appeared in my in-box:

    Dear Maharajas & Prabhus

    Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

    Today (27/08/2010) the Supreme Court issued notices to Chanchalapati Das, Stoka Krsna das, Chitranga Chaitanya Das, Rajiv Lochan Das and 4 other members of the alleged Governing Body of the ISKCON Society reg. by Shankhbhrit in 1978, in respect of initiating Criminal Contempt against them.

    The Brief background is as follows

    1. Sometime in July 2009 MPD, Jai Chaitanya Das, Chancalapti Das and other members of the alleged Governing Body of Shankhbhrit's ISKCON sent a photograph and a letter to Justice K.L. Manjunath. The photograph showed Justice Manjunath receiving a gift from MPD in 2003 in the premises of the Bangalore temple of ISKCON. [Editor's Note: Dayaram dasa neglects to state above that these are allegations]

    2. The accompanying letter stated that as Justice Manjunath has received valuable gifts from MPD he is bias towards ISKCON reg. by Shankhabhrit and therefore it is not proper for him to hear the RFA 421/2009. That time Justice Manjunath was hearing RFA 421/2009 filed by ISKCON Mumbai against ISKCON Bangalore. The senders address on the letter showed that it was sent from Sheshadripuram Branch of ISKCON Reg. in Mumbai by Srila Prabhupada in 1971.

    3.On 10th July 2009 Justice Manjunath questioned both the sides (ISKCON reg. in Mumbai and ISKCON of Shankhabhrit) about this letter & photograph. Both the sides denied having sent photograph & letter. But in the second week of July 2010 Jai Chaitanya filed an affidavit of Behalf of Shankbhrit's ISKCON stating that Justice Manjunath is prejudiced against it and therefore he should not hear the RFA.

    4.Advocates of Shankhbhrita's ISKCON (Maruth Prasad & Ramesh Babu) also approached two senior advocates ( Srinivasan and Shekhar Shetty) under whom Justice Manjuanth practiced as advocate before he was elevated to the post of the High Court Judge, requesting them to appear on behalf of Shankhabhrit's ISKCON so that Justice Manjunath will recuse himself from hearing RFA. It was/is well known fact that if these two lawyers appear then Justice Manjunath would release the matter.

    5.Then in September 2009 Jai Chaitanya on behalf of Shankhbhrit's ISKCON filed an application praying that Justice Manjunath recuses himself from hearing the RFA.

    6. Justice Manjunath dismissed the IA and initiated criminal contempt against MPD, Jai Chaitanya (who had signed affidavits on behalf of Shankhabhrit's ISKCON) and 4 advocates who appeared on behalf of Shankhbhrit's ISKCON. Justice Manjunath did not initiate Criminal Contempt against the other members of the Governing Body of Shankhbhrit's ISKCON.

    7. ISKCON reg. in Mumbai filed two petitions of Criminal contempt against other members of the Governing Body of Shankhabhrit's ISKCON. But Justice Sridhar Rao of Karnataka High Court dismissed those two petitions.

    8. Against the order of Justice Sridhar Rao, ISKCON reg. in Mumbai filed two SLPs praying that Criminal contempt be initiated against Chacnhapati Das, Stoka Krsna Das and others.

    9. Today (27/08/2010) in those two SLPs the Supreme Court issued notices to Chanchalapati Das, Stoka Krsna das and other 6 members of the Governing Body of the ISKCON Bangalore in respect of initiating Criminal Contempt against them.

    Following are the details

    SLP (Criminal) No. 5525/2010 & 5526 /2010

    Court Hall no. 13 presided over by Justice Panchal and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra.

    Hare Krsna.

    Your servant,

    Dayaram dasa

    _______

    Legal Glossary:

    RFA: Regular First Appeal
    SLP: Special Leave Petition
    IA: Interlocutory Application

Correspondent's commentary:

What we have been able to gather from various sources is that after winning in the lower court last April of 2009, Madhu Pandit dasa thought he could breath easy for a while because normally it would take ISKCON (reg. 1971 Mumbai) about 5-10 years to be able to get an appeal heard against him. My sources allege that Madhu Pandit has survived this long by two tactics—bribery—which is endemic in India, and delaying tactics like this. He hoped to delay everything by 5-10 years till it reached High Court and then another 10+ years to get to the Supreme Court. "Justice delayed is justice denied." But to his chagrin, instead of a 5-10 year wait, the matter was sent to the High Court of Karnataka in a record 9 weeks! No one, not even ISKCON (reg. Mumbai, 1971), could believe this. The victorious mood in Madhu Pandit's camp turned sour on the prospect of another fight on the heels of the last one, with the prospect of defeat ahead.

What made matters worse is that the judges of the High Courts are not as easy to manage as the lower court judges. Though bribery is still possible, they are generally of a higher caliber. So the story goes that the last thing Madhu Pandit dasa wanted was a judge who was both honest and intelligent, but that is what the Chief Justice of Karnataka did by putting Justice Manjunath on the bench to hear the case.

The High court of Karnataka on their own initiative filed criminal contempt charges against Madhu Pandit, his associates (Jai Caitanya, Chancalapati, etc.) and his lawyers for scandalizing the courts. Madhu Pandit was able to have charges against him quashed. The case was left in limbo until the Supreme Court of India took up the case and is initiating criminal contempt charges against Madhu Pandit's lieutenants while he is off the hook.

The Supreme Court may decide to hear the case themselves or send it back down to the High Court of Karnataka. I'm told that considering that it is the Supreme Court of India that is initiating this criminal contempt case, it seems almost certain what the final verdict will be (but in India anything is possible). If they were found guilty, then Madhu Pandit men could spend a minimum of six (6) months each in prison.

The word we are hearing from Hare Krsna Hill (HKH) is that in the face of all this bad news, externally MPD is putting on a brave face in the public. And declaring that he will fight to the end for justice and the struggle for truth, etc.. He is trying to inspire his faithful followers to keep working because Krsna is with him and victory is certain. But internally the word circulating on HKH is that Madhu Pandit knows he cannot win, so he is preparing for the inevitable and putting an exit strategy in place.

When I asked what was the proof for this I was told that residents on HKH could clearly see the signs that Madhu Pandit was preparing for defeat by creating a new organization called "The Hare Krishna Movement" based in Vrndavana, far from Karnataka. And that he was switching all emails to this new domain. That Chanchalapati dasa, the VP of Bangalore temple and Madhu Pandit's brother-in-law was seldom in Bangalore but had moved to the new headquarters in Vrndavana to prepare for the future exit. And, that while money was being collected for building flats and for the big Krsna theme park, that there was no construction going on, just collecting of funds--but where is it going and for whose benefit? The question is raised -- are funds being funneled to this new entity?

We were also told that Madhu Pandit leveraged ISKCON's good name in India and borrowed enormous amounts of money from banks and used it to purchase lands worth about INR 1400 crores (US$300 million) all over India. Madhu Pandit is supposedly the 2nd largest landowner in Vraja mandala. This may be why he is shifting his operations to Vrndavana.

Anyway, things are getting exciting; the High Court of Karnataka is supposed to finishing hearing the appeal starting on September 13, 2010. It should take less than 10 working days to hear the case then approximately 1 month to get a judgment. So sometime in October we should hear a decision from the High courts. Then it will go to the Supreme Court of India. In the meantime, the Supreme Court of India will initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Madhu Pandit's lieutenants. Not sure when that will begin or how long it will take to complete, or even who will be hearing the case. But it won't be long before we find out those details. When we find out, we will let you know. If there is truth in the allegations that Madhu Pandit attempted to scandalize the High court last year, then the effort has instead poisoned the whole judiciary of India against him.


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