Self-styled godman Paramahamsa Nithyananda, allegedly enmeshed in a sex scandal with a Tamil actress, is not only a swamiji who lorded over his minions.
He is also a landlord, owning over 21 acres of prime land over which he has established his ashram - Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam.
According to a status report prepared and sent to the State Revenue Department by Ramanagara Deputy Commissioner G L Chandrashekharaiah, Nithyananda is the sole owner of the land in Kallugopahalli in Bidadi taluk of the district.
"A detailed status report was sent to the government three days back. It has been found that Nithyananda is the sole owner of the land and it is not the property of a trust or a society," Chandrashekharaiah told Deccan Herald, adding that the total area owned by Nithyananda stood at 21 acres and 10 guntas.
Documents available with Deccan Herald show that the land Nithyananda purchased was registered on October 15, 2003.
The sellers of the land have been identified as Ramalinga Gupta, N Mukund, Shanth Kumar Gupta, K R Shashidhar, N Pratap, S Vinayak, H A Vijayendra and Inder Hari Inder. While selling the property to Nithyananda, these persons identified themselves as farmers.
By implication, therefore, once the registration was done in Nithyananda's name, he became the owner of agricultural land.
In this context, a senior civil advocate said that by possessing over 21 acres of farm land Nithyananda had violated Sections 79(A)(B) and 83 of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961. Section 79(B) holds that "no person other than a person cultivating land personally shall be entitled to hold land and it shall not be unlawful for an educational, religious or charitable institution or society or trust…a company, an association or other body of individuals not being a joint family, whether incorporated or not or a cooperative society other than a cooperative farm, to hold any land".
The law also states that Nithyananda may have violated Section 80 of the KLR Act, according to which no transfer or sale of land to non-agriculturists is allowed.
Chandrashekharaiaha said he had sent a detailed status report to the Revenue Department which will now have to take a decision on whether Nithyananda faced forfeiture of the land.
However, Section 83 of the KLR Act says that any transaction found to be in contravention of the legislation would be considered "null and void".
Besides, the penalty for such violation will invite forfeiture and the land will be vested in the State Government.
Party over at Tiruvannamalai; godman’s grandma in shock
The grim silence in the air on a hot March afternoon at the Nithyananda Swami’s ashram along the ‘Girivalam’ (mountain path) road here is deafening...
Since the sex scam catching the Godman on tape with Tamil film actress Ranjitha broke out, the gates are closed and firmly secured with a small posse of police standing guard to just two attendants inside the ‘Ashram’. The message is singularly clear: the party is over for now.
The metamorphosis of Rajasekharan into Swami Nithyananda from his birthplace here, known world over for its spiritual ‘gurus’ from Ramana Maharishi, Seshadri Swamigal to the ‘Visiri (fan) Swami’, has at once been a poignant saga of daring and transcendence, followed by the sensational fall.
“Nobody understood him (Rajasekharan) in his own birth place which led him to quit, be initiated elsewhere into a spiritual discipline and establish an ‘ashram’ near Bangalore as Swami Nithyananda. But just as he was at the peak of his yogic prowess, conquering worlds, for a moment he was just another ordinary man and slipped down,” said a monk of a Shiva Temple close to his ‘ashram’ in a pithy sum-up of the Godman’s rise and fall.
Born into an ordinary lower middle class family – his father Arunachalam made a living from a retail store - Rajasekharan was just 10 when, “an astrologer predicted he will become a ‘sanyasin’,” Kumaraswamy, paternal uncle of Nithyananda told Deccan Herald here on Tuesday.
A retired State Bank of India cashier, Raghupathy had initially taught the boy ‘yoga’, while a ‘Devi Upasaki’, Kuppammal, gave him the ‘Deeksha’ (initiation), remembers Kumaraswamy. Rajasekharan did not show much interest in studies, though after completing his SSLC exam, his father persuaded him to join a polytechnic in Gudiyatham.
Landing up in Chennai in 1995, he worked for a month in a private auto company when he decided to take the plunge to become a ‘sanyasin’ and joined the Ramakrishna Mission much against his family wishes, says Kumaraswamy.
The wandering youth’s stint there was followed by long Himalayan sojourns during which he learnt new meditation techniques and came back “enlightened with extraordinary healing powers,” and turned Swami Nithyananda, recalled Kumaraswamy. Nithyananda’s surviving family members here lead an anonymous existence. While Nithyananda’s mother is said to be at his Bangalore ashram, his 90-year-old grandmother, could hardly speak when this DH correspondent reached their modest home in ‘Kanni Kovil Street.’
“We are all down and depressed and don’t know what to utter; his grandmother can hardly rise after she heard about this (sex scandal) that has shocked all of us into disbelief,” said a woman aide at their house, adding, “please do not disturb us.”
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