Govt set to take over Aparna Ashram in Gurugram

The state government is set to take over yoga guru Dhirendra Brahmachari’s Aparna Ashram in Gurugram, and will bring in the Aparna Institution (Taking over of Management and Control) Bill, 2025, in the current budget session.

Known to have taught yoga to former PM Indira Gandhi, Brahmachari was also known as 'Flying Swami'. He incorporated and got Aparna Ashram registered in 1973-74 with the Registrar of Societies, New Delhi, having its registered office at Friends Colony, “for diffusion of useful knowledge of yoga among the masses through education, research, training and dissemination”.

He also created an institution, Aparna, as a separate entity and constituted its independent governing council consisting of four members, including himself.

He purchased over 24 acres at Silokhra village in Gurugram in the name of Aparna Ashram with the help of donations, grants and financial assistance from the Centre and vested the land in the institution. Various buildings were constructed over there after spending crores, and yoga-related activities were started, added the Bill.

The institution is located near Sector 30, Gurugram. In 1989, the government issued a notification that the land of Silokhra and Sukhrali villages will be acquired for public purpose, which included land and buildings of the ashram. Brahmachari filed objections before the Land Acquisition Collector, which were dismissed. He filed a petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 1990 for quashing the notification, but he died in a plane crash in 1994.

After his demise, the society got divided into two groups, one led by Laxman Chaudhary, and the other by Murali Chaudhry. The groups have been litigating against each other for over two decades, as per the Bill.

“These groups are trying to illegally and unauthorisedly sell the aforesaid land and building of the institution against the aims and objects of the institution for their personal gains. There is every likelihood that the moveable and immovable properties of the institution may get destroyed which will frustrate the very purpose with which the institution was created,” it added.