Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev's Isha Foundation has responded to reports citing a Madras High Court bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam which had posed the question about why the spiritual leader was encouraging young women to tonsure their heads and renounce worldly lives to live like hermits when he had got his own daughter married.

In a statement, Isha Foundation said, "Isha Foundation was founded by Sadhguru to impart yoga and spirituality to people. We believe that adult individual human beings have the freedom and the wisdom to choose their path. We do not ask people to get married or take up monkhood as these are individual choices. Isha Yoga Center is home to thousands who are not monks and a few who have taken Brahmacharya or Monkhood."

The high court bench was hearing a petition filed by a retired professor who claimed that his two well-educated daughters had been "brainwashed" into permanently residing at the Isha Yoga Centre.

S Kamaraj, a former professor at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, filed the petition requesting that his daughters appear in court in person.

On Monday, the two women, aged 42 and 39, appeared in court, stating that they were staying at the Isha Foundation of their own free will and were not being held against their wishes.

The women had given similar statements in the past, in a case that has been ongoing for over a decade, after their parents alleged that their lives had turned into "hell" since the daughters "abandoned" them.

The judges, however, decided to investigate the matter further and instructed the police to compile a list of all cases related to the Isha Foundation.

Justice Sivagnanam remarked, "We want to understand why a man, who has given his daughter in marriage and ensured she is settled in life, is encouraging others' daughters to shave their heads and live as hermitesses."

The Isha Foundation statement further said, "Despite this, the Petitioner wanted the monks to be produced before the Court and the monks have presented themselves before the court. They have clearly stated that they are staying in Isha Yoga Center out of their own volition. Now that the matter is seized by the court, we hope truth will prevail and there is an end to all the unnecessary controversies created."

The Foundation further claimed, "Previously, this very petitioner along with others, tried trespassing into our premises on the false pretext of being a fact finding committee to enquire about the facts surrounding the crematorium being constructed by Isha Foundation and then filed a criminal complaint against the people of Isha Yoga Center. Against this, the Hon’ble High court of Madras has granted a stay on submission of the final report by the police. Apart from this, there is no other criminal case against the Foundation. Whoever indulges in spreading false information against the foundation will be strictly dealt with as per the law of the land."