The Supreme Court on Saturday set aside an order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directing Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation (AOL) to pay ₹ 5 crore in environmental compensation for restoring the Yamuna floodplains, where the World Culture Festival was held in 2016. The court pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold such an event on the ecologically sensitive Yamuna floodplains and directed the landowning agency to refund the ₹ 5 crore within four weeks.
The counsel for AOL argued before the top court that the NGT required the organisation to deposit a sum of ₹ 5 crore prior to the event based on a conclusion that the floodplain was damaged. The court held that such a conclusion was reached without the tribunal noticing that in December 2015, AOL wrote to DDA about construction debris scattered at the site in question, which DDA admitted and allowed AOL to clean it up.
Finding serious flaws in the reasoning and conclusion of the NGT’s December 7, 2017 judgment, in a challenge by AOL’s legal entity Vyakti Vikas Kendra, India, the top court said that the tribunal “burdened” AOL with the task of developing the floodplain that it “never destroyed”. Pursuant to the event, the tribunal relied on reports prepared by the expert committee, whose findings were under doubt, given that in one report, the committee reported extensive damage and in a subsequent report, admitted it was not possible “to determine the state of ecosystem to which restoration has to be carried out”. The court found further flaws in the committee’s findings based on unverified Google imagery showing the event site as a “green vista” prior to the event, when there were reports as old as 2015 indicating how the pre-event state of the floodplain did not present a “happy picture”. The court cited the NGT Act and said that the task entrusted to the tribunal was for restoration, which is distinct from rehabilitation.
“Rehabilitation of the floodplain was never the issue before the committee or the Tribunal. Evidently, the committee not only exceeded its mandate but also brought its earlier opinions on the issue under scanner,” the top court held.
