Delhi High Court grants CBI permission to freeze Virender Dev Dixit, an evading self-styled preacher,’s bank accounts

The absconding self-styled spiritual preacher Virender Dev Dixit’s bank accounts may now be frozen according to a decision by the Delhi High Court on Tuesday.

The court read the CBI’s status report on its efforts to apprehend Dixit, who is wanted for rape and has been missing for a number of years, and noted the presence of a few bank accounts that were run by him.

In a statement, the court said that it was “satisfied with the attempts and progress made by CBI in the matter” and ordered the agency to keep up its initiatives. A panel of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula said, “CBI shall certainly be free to freeze the bank accounts by taking steps in accordance with law,” while giving the government agency six weeks to take further action.

The court ordered the CBI to continue the search, seizure, and freezing of any bank accounts connected to Dixit, observing that it has “done the necessary and are still doing the necessary” in the issue.

In 2017, the NGO Foundation for Social Empowerment, backed by attorney Sravan Kumar, filed a petition with the high court stating that numerous young girls and women were forcibly detained at the “spiritual university” established by Dev and denied access to their families.

The court noted on Tuesday that the daughter was a “grown up” and did not want to live with them in response to the request made by the parents of one of the ladies residing at the ashram for meeting her.

After learning that Dixit or his followers were posting videos on at least six different social media accounts and YouTube channels, as well as a significant number of them since March 2018, the court had ordered the CBI to initiate action to arrest Dixit on May 31.

Prior to this, the high court had ordered the CBI to find Dixit and to look into allegations of the unlawful detention of women and children at the ashram, where it was said they were held in “animal-like” circumstances behind metal doors in a “fortress” encircled by barbed wire.

He continues to avoid the dragnet despite the agency’s announcement of a reward of Rs 5 lakh for anybody with genuine information leading to his arrest.

The high court had previously asked retired IPS officer Kiran Bedi for advice over the welfare of women residing at Dixit’s ashram, Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidhyalaya, Rohini, and established a committee under her direction to oversee its operation.

Additionally, a team made up of attorneys and the executive director of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, was formed to audit the institute’s facilities.

Ajay Verma and Nandita Rao, two attorneys who were on the committee, informed the court in a report about the “horrible” circumstances present there. It claimed that more than 100 girls and women were living in “animal-like conditions with no privacy even for bathing” at the facility.

The court had ordered the ashram to provide justification in 2022 and said that it was impossible to assume that the detainees were living there of their own free choice.

Additionally, it had said that although it couldn’t compel the ladies living at the ashram’s “shocking” circumstances to live with their parents, no institution had the right to conduct its business in a way that infringed on the residents’ basic rights.

November would be the next hearing date for the case.