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The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), better known as the Hare Krishna movement, named in a $400 million lawsuit alleging sexual and emotional abuse of boarding students, plans to file for bankruptcy protection later in February, a spokesman for the organisation said.
The congregation plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which protects an organization against creditors and allows it to reorganize rather than liquidate assets, he said.
The action is contemplated to deal with the lawsuit, which alleges that children were abused at the religious society's boarding schools in the 1970s and 1980s.
The lawsuit claiming $400 million in damages was filed in the federal district court in Dallas, Texas, on June 12, 2000 by former boarding school students.
The lawsuit, ISKCON leaders say, seeks far more money than the financial value of all the Krishna temples in North America. It would cost the congregation millions to fight and possibly bankrupt it even if they won, said Anuttama Dasa, ISKCON's director of communications.
"We don't believe that innocent members and congregations should be held accountable for the deviant nature of individual acts committed 20 or 30 years ago," he said.
"Chapter 11 protection will also assure that innocent families and congregations do not have their places of worship sold out from under them," Dasa said.
ISKCON plans to set up a fund to compensate children who may have been victimised and had already formed the 'Child Protection Office' in 1998 to investigate allegations of abuse.
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