The Supreme Court was told on Tuesday that Chhattisgarh Police has filed a closure report in a first information report filed against yoga guru and Patanjali Ayurved founder Ramdev for allegedly spreading false information about several medicines being used in the treatment of Covid-19, Live Law reported.

Ramdev has been accused of making misleading claims about modern medicine on several occasions. In May 2021, the Patna and Raipur chapters of the Indian Medical Association filed a police complaint against Ramdev, seeking an FIR against him for spreading “false and baseless” information about Covid-19 treatment.

The yoga guru was booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to negligent acts likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace and disobedience to order promulgated by a public servant.

He was also booked under provisions of the 2005 Disaster Management Act.

On Tuesday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta claimed before a bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma that the complaints against Ramdev were “obviously” filed by “sponsored” groups, Live Law reported.

The court was hearing Ramdev’s plea for clubbing of cases. The bench held that the request was redundant as after the closure of the Chhattisgarh case, only one in Bihar remained, The Indian Express reported.

Ramdev’s counsel said that the proceedings could be revived if the complainant were to file a protest petition, and urged that the status of the Bihar case be determined before the matter is finally disposed of.

In response, the court said that Ramdev would remain protected from coercive action, The Hindu reported.

The case will be heard next in the last week of December.

Ramdev’s claims

On May 31, 2021, Ramdev said that he did not feel the need to get vaccinated against Covid-19 yet since he had been practising yoga-Ayurveda for decades. However, on June 10, 2021, he said that he will get vaccinated soon.

In another video from May that year, Ramdev claimed that 1,000 doctors had died even after getting two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Before that, Ramdev had referred to allopathy as a “stupid science”. He even claimed that medicines such as remdesivir and favipiravir approved by the Drugs Controller General of India for Covid-19 treatment had failed. “Lakhs of patients have died because of allopathic medicines rather than a shortage of oxygen,” he had claimed.

However, he issued an apology on May 23, 2021, after Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan asked him to withdraw his comments.

Also read: A brief history of Patanjali’s dangerous claims