Dharmasthala deaths: Court told several bodies were disposed of in violation of procedure

Advocates representing Kusumavathi, the mother of Sowjanya, told the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday, July 21, that there were several procedural violations in the disposal of bodies in multiple cases of unnatural deaths in Dharmasthala.

Kusumavathi had filed a PIL in the Karnataka High Court seeking various directions regarding the investigation of 74 unnatural deaths in Dharmasthala. 

During the hearing on Tuesday, advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for Kusumavathi, told the HC that several of those 74 bodies had been disposed of without following mandatory legal procedures under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Karnataka (Investigation of Unnatural Deaths and Conduct of Inquests) Rules, 2004. 

She said that in several instances, bodies of unidentified people had been buried on the same day or the day after death, and barely any details were available in police records regarding the nature of investigation or the manner of death. 

“Victims are uniformly tabulated as unknown persons, without their age group and gender. If I am staying in a guest house, it will record my name, address, age and government-registered ID. Even those bodies found in guest houses and lodges are buried as unknown persons… They are recorded as suicide, not even whether it’s hanging or suicide. Not even UDR numbers have been given by police in three cases,” Vrinda told the court, according to LiveLaw. 

She drew the court’s attention to five cases in particular, to point out the seriousness of alleged failure to follow investigation procedures. 

In one case, when an unidentified woman was found dead in a lodge, the police wrote to the town panchayat the morning after her death and registered it as a murder, but the body was cremated soon after. She said that there were no inquest or autopsy reports, nor were procedures under Section 174 CRPC and rules regarding the conduct of investigations in unnatural deaths followed. 

Vrinda also pointed out that one case was completely “erased from the record altogether”. In another, a woman who was found hanging in a forest was ruled a suicide, and the body was buried the next day without an inquest and without investigating whether it was a homicide disguised as a suicide. 

Similarly, Vrinda said no efforts were made to determine the identity of a man found dead in a guest house run by the Dharmasthala temple. 

The hearing has been adjourned to August 24. 

Kusumavathi had filed a petition in the Karnataka HC on November 6, 2025, seeking directions to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to register 74 separate FIRs in connection with each case of unnatural death in Dharmasthala documented by her. She contended that the FIRs must be registered under sections of the IPC that relate to murder, destruction of evidence, incorrect maintenance of records, and other offences that the investigations might disclose. 

She also urged the court to order a separate investigation officer for each case and that the police submit periodic status reports.