The court of the ACJ-CCJ-ARC (East) at the Karkardooma District Courts in Delhi ordered yoga guru and businessperson Ramdev to appear in court today in relation to the injunction order restraining the sale of From Godman to Tycoon: The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev, a book on his life and on the rise of his business empire, the Patanjali Group, published by Juggernaut Books. Ramdev, who was to have appeared at 2.30 p.m., arrived about two hours late and gave his statement to the court.
The same court had issued an injunction on August 4, restraining Juggernaut from selling the book. The injunction also barred online retailers Amazon and Flipkart from selling it, and had also named the author Priyanka Pathak-Narain as a defendant in the case. In his petition, Ramdev claimed the facts recorded in the book are false and tend to injure his reputation. The court upheld the injunction in a subsequent order dated September 27.
Narain and her publisher Juggernaut Books appealed against the decision on October 27, claiming: “The book is a truthful, even handed and balanced consideration of the history of Baba Ramdev, which has been meticulously researched and is based on public and recorded sources, most of which have been in the public domain for years.” Narain has stated in the past that her book is a work of “serious journalism” and has 25 pages detailing the sources for the information it contains.
Ramdev’s appearance on Tuesday was his first time in court in relation to the case after he failed to show up on a previous date.
The court’s order was met with criticism by free speech advocates when it was first passed since it was an “ex-parte” injunction, without allowing the defendants a chance to put their case across before restraining the book’s sale.
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