Bikram Choudhury: 'Hot yoga' guru ordered to pay $924,000 in sexual harassment lawsuit

The 69-year-old has built an empire around Bikram yoga

Bikram Choudhury has attracted many thousands of followers with hi (AP)

The controversial founder of a yoga system that has been hugely popular in the West has been ordered to pay more than $900,000 to a lawyer who said she was fired for investigating allegations of sexual harassment against him.

A Los Angeles jury ordered Bikram Choudhury to pay $924,500 in compensatory damages to Minakshi Jafa-Bodden after finding he had subjected her to harassment and retaliation.

The Associated Press said the jury will also consider further, punitive damages.

No pain, no gain: a Bikram yoga class (Getty Images)

“It’s an enormous vindication,” said Ms Jafa-Bodden’s lawyer, Carla Minnard.

She said Mr Choudhury sexually harassed Jafa-Bodden, inappropriately touched her and tried to get her to stay with him in a hotel suite. Mr Choudhury fired her in June 2013 when she began investigating claims from other women of sexual abuse, Ms Minnard said.

The 69-year-old Mr Choudhury has built an empire around Bikram yoga, a rigorous, 90-minute routine performed in a room that can reach more than 100 degrees. The technique is taught at more than 650 studios worldwide and has drawn countless thousands of followers.

Mr Choudhury is a controversial figure within the world of yoga. In India, there have been claims that he has been trying to take ownership of a practice that dates back thousands of years.

Last October, he lost a court appeal to copyright his sequence of 26 poses and two breathing exercises. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the sequence used in hot yoga classes is a process intended to improve people's health, so copyright law does not cover it.

Mr Choudhury is also facing lawsuits by six women who claim he sexually assaulted them, the first of which is set for trial in April.

The most recent lawsuit, which was filed on February 13, alleges that Mr Choudhury raping a Canadian woman.

Mr Choudhury’s lawyers have said he never sexually assaulted any of the women suing him and that prosecutors had declined to bring charges in their cases.