The Supreme Court on Tuesday informed the Chhattisgarh government that the criminal case registered against Patanjali co-founder Ramdev for his alleged misleading campaign against allopathic medicines during the Covid-19 pandemic had been closed, but a similar FIR was pending in Bihar.

The actual reasons for the closure of the Chhattisgarh case, however, are not known.

The submission was made by solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Chhattisgarh government, before a bench of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, which posted the matter for further hearing to January.

The court was dealing with an appeal filed by Ramdev seeking clubbing of the two FIRs in Chhattisgarh and Bihar, and their transfer to Delhi for trial. Mehta told the court that the “FIRs are apparently sponsored by some interested persons”.

The criminal cases were registered against Ramdev during the pandemic in June 2021 in Chhattisgarh and Bihar by Indian Medical Association members after the yoga practitioner’s videos had gone viral. He had criticised and questioned the efficacy of the allopathic medicines and vaccines used to tackle Covid-19.