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With his Art of Living Foundation (AOL) yet to pay the major chunk of “environment compensation” for its cultural fest on the Yamuna floodplains, spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was on Thursday slapped with a contempt suit for “alleged disrespect shown by him to the orders of National Green Tribunal (NGT).”
The matter will come up for hearing before the Principal Bench of NGT headed by Justice Swatanter Kumar on 10 May.
Advocate Sanjay Parikh moved the application on behalf of environmentalist Manoj Misra in the NGT on Thursday. Misra had filed cases in the NGT against AOL for violating environment laws.
Parikh in his application said,
He added that statements issued by Sri Sri “tend to interfere with the administration of justice and lowers the authority of this Tribunal.”
Referring to some media reports, Parikh suggested that AoL has delayed the deposition of Rs 4.75 crore of “remaining environment compensation” imposed by the NGT despite the fact that:
The NGT had imposed an environment compensation of Rs 5 crore on the AOL for the destruction its event, World Culture Festival (WCF), had caused to the ecology at the fragile Yamuna floodplains.
It had pleaded to the tribunal for more time to deposit the remaining environment compensation.
Responding to its plea, the NGT had extended the deadline further to three weeks, which too lapsed on 1 April while AOL is yet to pay the balance amount.
On the other side, Akshama Nath, counsel for AOL, told IANS:
She maintained that when AOL had returned the land to the Delhi Development Authority, it was cleaner and greener in comparison to what the foundation had received when it held the event.
Chief spokesperson of the AOL Sonia Madhok in a statement to IANS said:
(Vinayak Dutt can be contacted at vinayak.d@ians.in)
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