Panel under Kiran Bedi to keep watch on Rohini ashram

New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Tuesday formed a committee under the supervision of retired IPS officer Kiran Bedi to monitor the welfare and protection of rights of women living in an ashram founded by absconding preacher Virender Dev Dixit.

Hearing petitions concerning the state of affairs at Adhyatmik Vidyalaya in Rohini, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla said the institution would be free to pursue its religious and spiritual practices, but the committee would ensure no woman inmate or child, if any, in the ashram was subjected to any treatment that was in breach of their fundamental or legal rights.

The district judge of the area will be the committee’s chairperson and the district magistrate, the DCP (crime against women cell), the district legal service authority’s secretary, a nominee of Delhi Commission for Women, and the woman and child development department’s district officer will be its members.

“We make it clear that the institution shall be free to pursue its religiousand spiritual practices, provided none of them infringes any fundamental and other rights of any inmate or any other person,” it observed.