Art of Living (AoL) foundation on Friday expressed its inability to pay the “remaining green fine” of Rs 4.75 crore to the National Green Tribunal that was levied against it in lieu of alleged environment destruction caused by its World Culture Festival on the Yamuna floodplanes last month.
The foundation said it can only give a bank guarantee for it. Petitioner Manoj Misra’s lawyer, Sanjay Parikh, has alleged that Art of Living did not intend to pay the penalty and was only “beating around the bush” since beginning of the case. “They are doing so consistently from the very beginning. First they lied to the court in a sense that they don’t have money to pay for the environment destruction, their event had caused. Although the ministry of culture had released Rs 1.5 crore for the event, but they told the court that they don’t have any money and got away by paying just Rs 25 lakh in place of Rs 5 crore,” Parikh said.
The development comes amid reports of ISIS threats to AoL head Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Parikh also expressed the apprehension that AoL was trying to get the March 9 NGT order nullified. The NGT in its judgment had established that there was “environment destruction caused to Yamuna Flood plains by the World Culture Festival” and instructed a principal committee “to verify the quantum of destruction occurred after inspecting.”
“AoL knows that principle committee’s report will be against them. So they are creating hurdles in their inspection. Now they are saying that they will decide on their own if at all any destruction has been caused to the flood planes by their event,” Parikh said. Meanwhile, officials from Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) confirmed, “they are not ready with the inspection report yet”. The NGT committee comprised officials from DPCC, National Pollution Control Board, ministry of Environment and Forest Conservation and union Water Resource ministry.
AoL, though, countered the allegations insisting they have no hesitation to pay the money. “We have only asked for a change in the modalities of payment.” The change, according to them: “We have no objection to pay the penalty if at all any damage has been done to the flood planes. We have just informed the NGT that we may like to pay in form of a Bank Gurantee than cash in this case,” AoL lawyer Akshama Nath said.
Replying to the question on creating hindrance in the way of NGT committee’s inspection, Nath blamed the delay in preparing the report on “inter-departmental miscommunication.”
“There was some confusion among the officials who visited the site for inspection and the higher up in the hierarchy of their department,” Nath said. Meanwhile, the DDA has also expressed apprehensions that AoL may not pay the penalty to restore the damage done to the flood planes. They said a bank guarantee was not enough.