Chandigarh: As per media reports, the Punjab government has taken a plea in the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the cremation of dead body of Ashutosh, a dera chief, could lead to law and order problem. Notably Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan, commonly called as Noormehal dera, chief Ashutosh had died in January 28, 2014 under suspicious circumstances after which dera management had declared that he was gone into deep meditation. The dera is keeping his dead body in refrigerators maintaining that ‘clinically dead’ Ashutosh might revive from his alleged ‘samadhi’.
High court reportedly rebuked the Punjab government and asked it to reach a solution with the dera in order to get Ashutosh’s dead body cremated.
The case was heard on Tuesday (Aug. 02) by a bench headed by Justice Mahesh Grover.
Adjourning the case till September 16, for further hearing, the bench made it clear that it would decide the case on merit, if the state authorities failed to resolve the issue.
A single bench of Justice M M S Bedi, in its December 1, 2014 orders, had directed that the Ashutosh’s body should be cremated within 15 days by a committee. But the Noormehal Dera had challenged the order on the grounds that the courts were not ‘competent’ to distinguish between a ‘naturally dead body’ and a body in ‘samadhi’ (deep meditation).