Baba Ramdev appeals to SC to combine FIR filed against him, Court postpones hearing to July

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday postponed the hearing of a plea filed by Yoga guru Baba Ramdev to combine FIRs filed against him in various states regarding his purported remarks on allopathy's inability to cure COVID-19. 

The court sought the status of criminal cases pending against him in Bihar and Chhattisgarh over his alleged remarks against the allopathic cure for COVID-19. 

Justices MM Sundresh and SVN Bhatti allowed Bihar and Chhattisgarh two weeks to update the court on the status of the FIRs and any chargesheets filed. They instructed Ramdev's counsel to involve the complainants in the case and rescheduled the hearing for July, news agency ANI reported.

It also asked Ramdev's counsel to implement the complainants in the case before the top court and posted the matter in July.

Ramdev seeks clubbing of FIRs and transfer of cases to Delhi lodged against him.

The plea of Ramdev 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.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that slamming Baba Ramdev for his derogatory statements against the modern medicine system and its doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court questioned him why the "Yoga Guru" must criticize other systems. Such observations came from the bench while it was considering a plea made by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which sought to control the derogatory statements and "smear campaign" by the Yoga Guru against the vaccination drive and modern medicines.

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.

According to an ANI report, 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 controversial remarks criticizing certain COVID-19 medications sparked outrage and led to legal action by the IMA. 

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 treatment of COVID-19 infection.

The complaint said there are several videos of Ramdev on social media in which he had allegedly made such misleading remarks.