Osho's fake will

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Osho's Last Will and Testament?

For 23 years after Osho left his body on Jan 19 1990, not a word or hint of "Osho's will" was known anywhere in the sannyas community at-large. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, it appeared in a European court case, in a dispute over the European Community trademark "Osho". The circumstances were as follows:

In 1991, Osho International Foundation (OIF) in Zürich started registering Osho's name as a trademark in various European countries, ostensibly to protect the name Osho against "abuse", ie supposedly unauthorized use by non-sannyasins and "enemies" of Osho.

As the program developed, it became apparent that enforcement of this trademark -- in parallel with enforcement of copyright, see also Trademarks and copyright -- was as much if not more focused on friends and lovers of Osho, as a way of maintaining an ever-narrower vision of Osho's legacy.

It was inevitable that some pushback would happen, and so it came to pass that Osho Lotus Commune e.V., operator of Osho Uta meditation centre in Köln, filed an application to cancel the trademark in Europe.

On June 8 2013, OIF's lawyers submitted some documents as part of that court case, including a sworn affidavit by Philip Toelkes (Sw Prem Niren) of the OIF legal team, and a "last will and testament" supposedly signed by Osho on October 15th, 1989. It cannot be over-emphasized that the existence of such a document had not been known or even dreamed of in the previous 23 years since Osho left his body.

How credible can this will be? Let's see ....

Niren's statement

Toelkes paras 1 & 2}
Toelkes paras 24-26}
the alleged will: main page
the alleged will: witnesses

Niren's statement consisted of many numbered paragraphs and one "exhibit", the purported will. It was dated June 4 2013 and can be viewed in toto among Osho Tapoban's pages on Issuu, the document storage site. Relevant here are items 1, 2, 24, 25 and 26, plus the image of the will.

Community Trade Mark Registration
No 1224831 OSHO in Classes 41 & 42
In the name of Osho International
Foundation ("OIF") and
Application for Invalidity No 5063
thereto by Osho Lotus Commune e.V.
(“Applicant")

Second Supplemental Witness Statement

I, Philip Toelkes, also known as Prem Niren, hereby declare that:
1. All the statements made herein are true and from my personal knowledge and recollection. Where I have made statements from another source, I have identified that source and believe the facts to be true. I am competent to make this witness statement. My address is [provided but not needed in the wiki context].

2. Scope of statement. This statement responds to questions raised by Lotus in its brief of January 4, 2013, and mischaracterizations of the documents of rights transfer and US copyright, contract and intellectual property. It will not restate the facts set forth in my earlier statements.

[ .... ]

24. Osho's Last Will & Testament negates Lotus' contentions re invalidity of documents of transfer. Though Lotus' claims against the validity of the documents of transfer are shown to be against the applicable law and without foundation, the vulnerability of any of the documents of transfer would not defeat Osho's clearly stated intention to transfer any and all property interests to the persons and entities he entrusted with his work. Osho left a Last Will & Testament, which was created to address the possibility that any of the earlier transfers would not be effective to divest him of all property interests, as had been his stated intention.

25. A true copy of Osho's Last Will & Testament, ("Osho's Will") executed on October 15, 1989, shortly before his death, a copy of which is provided herewith as Exhibit 4, clearly stated again his intention to transfer any and all property rights or interests he had to OIF. His will devises "all right, title and interest on any nature in any and all property including but not limited to all ownership, publishing or related rights, to all my work...in any form..." The breadth of the bequest is clearly sufficient to transfer any and all rights to use of his name and likeness, as well as all of his work.

26. Authentication of Will. I drafted the Will, and witnessed Osho's execution thereof, in the presence of the signing witnesses, as can be seen on the face of the document. The copy provided is a true and correct copy of the Will, and the signatures thereon were made by the persons so identified and were made on the date indicated on the document. Osho asked questions about the legal effect of the document prior to his execution thereof, and was unquestionably mentally alert and in full possession of his faculties at the time of execution.

Thus spake Niren.

the graphologists' reports

Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 5 (published 1976), back cover
the letter, extracted from the book cover
the two signatures, from the letter and will, for comparison
Parik (graphologist) report

As can be imagined, this purported Last Will caused a lot of excitement, consternation and just plain WTF. Suspicions were aroused among many sannyasins, for the same reasons that Osho's fake adoption raised suspicions: that this is convenient, and where has this doc been all these years? Among certain sannyasins, the Hunt was on, looking deeply into any and all of Osho's old signatures.

Possibly the first to notice that Osho's signature in this will was VERY similar to that in a letter were Sw Chidananda and Ma Yoga Videh. That letter he wrote on 5 February 1976. As it happens, they found it not squirreled away in a drawer in Pune, but displayed on the back cover of one of Osho's books, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 5.

At any rate, they were the first to commission a professional graphologist, an expert in handwriting analysis, to examine the the two signatures. That graphologist, Nicole Ciccola of Bologna Italy, submitted her report on Oct 13 2013. It can be viewed at another of Tapoban's pages stored at Issuu.

In her report, Ciccola cites a graphological text, L'indagine grafica, by Orlando Sivieri, pub 1967 by Cedam, Padova: "The perfect matching of words or groups of letters is undoubtedly the most incontrovertible evidence of a fake, since nobody, as they write, can repeat the movements that produce his/her handwriting in such an an absolutely identical way, in the same order, with the same sequence, the same rhythm ... Even more so for signatures. Anyone can try to write his/her own signature as many times as s/he wants; s/he will never find any which, placed on top of another one, perfectly repeats the lines in the sign, spacing, etc".

Two more graphologists from India were also engaged and submitted reports. The first, NR Parik of Aurangabad, has enlarged images of both signatures with a third image showing them superimposed. A summary page from his report, filed on Nov 6 2013, is seen at right. The full report is available also in Tapoban's pages.

The third graphologist's report, filed Nov 9 2013, is from Gaurav Kaushik of JK Consultancy in New Delhi. A pdf version can be found online among Osho Uta's records of the event. Kaushik also testifies that the two signature images when superimposed are seen to be identical, and adds that the Will signature "appears to be drawn slow in execution, is tremerous [sic] in nature and has a defective line quality. Whereas [the 1976 signature] is freely written, shows normal consistency and shows genuine line quality".

aftermath?

       
This section still under construction, awaiting research.

The story of how this story plays/played out is a long and complex one. Its complexity derives mainly from the fact that it is unfolding in the world of law and courts, where language can be arcane and, although facts are important, processes, protocols and procedures are more so. To the uninitiated, it all can be fairly inscrutable, almost as opaque as former US President Bill Clinton's famous "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is". (Clinton was also a lawyer.) It brings to mind Osho's naturalistic pronunciation of the word as "law"-"yer", which comes out as "liar". Please bear with us as we attempt to navigate.

European trademark case

The first legal reckoning of this story was not complex. It involves the court case in which the alleged will was introduced, the European Trademark case in 2013. Accounts of that part of the story do not mention the alleged will at all, the case having apparently been decided on other grounds. It is not known as of this writing whether the introduction of the alleged will by Niren had any ramifications, for or against the court's decision, which came in 2015.

That decision was written up in Osho Times, datelined Alicante, Spain. The first paragraph:

On appeal from an earlier decision, the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) once again confirmed on 23rd September 2015 the validity of the European Trademark “OSHO,” as well as ownership of the trademark by Osho International Foundation, Switzerland. (“OIF”) [Appeal No. R199712014-4 OSHO]

The article went on to attack at length the principal actor who had challenged OIF's trademarking of Osho in Europe, Ramateertha, with plenty of ad-hominems, and to explain at length all the reasons the court's decision was right and just.

Ramateertha's appeal of that decision was settled in 2017, again in OIF's favour. The story, again as per Osho Times:

Europe’s Highest Court Confirms OSHO Trademark/Lovemark! (underlining per the wiki, not Osho Times)
The European General Court – a branch of Court of Justice of the European Union – Makes Final Decision on OSHO Trademark and confirms ownership by Osho International Foundation

Again in this story, repeated in Indian dailies, there was no mention of the alleged will. It was as if it had never been presented. Was the alleged will accepted as evidence of Osho's intent? Did the three graphologists' negative assessment of the alleged will hurt OIF's case in any way? We're still looking for reports that might answer these and other questions.

The main event

But the result in that one case is rather a minor branch-line of the main story, which is, what about this will? Did Osho really create this will, or is it a fake? And if a fake, what has happened to those responsible? What has happened to the Justice process which is supposed to "correct" "injustices"? This last question has no simple answer but we will follow the trail as far as we can.

If a crime has been committed, or is suspected to have been committed, there are well-established legal processes which are supposed to look into and/or redress such matters, though they vary considerably from one country to another. Basically, one branch of the government (police or other investigators at the appropriate level) is supposed to investigate such matters, gather information and bring its findings to another, related branch which will formally and ritualistically point the society's collective finger at those alleged to have done the deed.

Then comes the drama of a "trial", wherein the accused is/are "prosecuted" by the state, acting through its team of lawyers, and defended by their own lawyers, arguing, presenting evidence, questioning witnesses, etc, etc, in highly ritualized ways in a special location (a "court") with a representative of yet another closely related branch of government, a judge, presiding over the proceedings and coming to a decision, following rules that are partly written down and partly not. This is "Justice", and it is the best that can happen in most civil societies in terms of fairness to all concerned, and in some places, in some situations, may actually approach such fairness. But nothing is perfect.

First, the FIR

First Information Report

What happens if the police are not motivated to start the process by investigating what might seem to be, by all appearances as far as the public are concerned, a crime? In most places, the answer is, "Not much", but there may be ways to get the police motivated. In India, private citizens can lodge complaints, allegations of wrongdoing, directly with the police, to compel them to act, to investigate an alleged crime.

Since the alleged will was one way or another created in India, that is where the story would have to continue, if at all. And so it came to pass that an Indian sannyasin, Sw Premgeet, aka Yogesh Thakkar, registered an FIR (First Information Report) with the Pune police, requiring them to start looking into this case. This was in Nov of 2013. It was ten pages, the beginning of which can be seen at right. The beginning text identifies the complainant and specifies the charges which are being considered, ie under which Act(s) in the Indian Penal Code.

The full FIR can be viewed at Osho Uta's site. Premgeet has accused not only the three whose names are on the alleged will (Niren, Jayesh and Amrito) but three more members of the OIF board, Yogendra, Mukesh and Pramod.

So what happened with that?

Bombay High Court, 2016

Next up in the saga comes this court, located in Mumbai. This is not the court one might expect to come next, where the accused go to their trial. No, this is the court where Premgeet, frustrated with the perceived inaction of the Pune police, initiated a petition to get the investigation transferred away from the Pune police to the investigative arm(s) of federal authorities in New Delhi. He was already a frequent flier with this court, having tried for years to get certain perceived financial irregularities at Osho Resort investigated by the Charity Commissioner, without apparent progress.

In Aug 2016, the court began to entertain his petition about the Will. Full transcripts are not available but much detail can be gleaned from the HC website regarding the concerned parties, the lawyers, the judges, and their rulings or pronouncements for each session, of which there were no less than 29. As this information is not simple to access and has so much verbiage, the wiki will present a separate page with highlights and detailed instructions on how to access the full reports, such as they are, at Bombay High Court case, 2016. A summary:

Sessions ran from Aug 3 2016 to Oct 11 2018. Nothing much happened in many of them, with one party or another requesting the court to "stand over" for a week or a month or two. The judges did admonish the Pune police a couple of times but in the end they decided that they were doing an adequate job and there was no compelling reason to transfer the investigation to federal investigators.

About the three professional graphologists' reports that deemed the will unequivocally a forgery, the court ruled that, as they had been privately commissioned, their testimony would need to be corroborated by a government graphologist. The first one engaged by the Pune police declared that as all the docs involved in the case were photocopies, one could not form an opinion. A second one was engaged but it was not clear what, if anything resulted from that.

As far as the Bombay High Court was concerned, the case was finished, dismissed, but the story does continue. Stay tuned for further developments ....

see also
Osho News
Osho Uta