Art of Living Continues to Get Away With Not Paying for Festival

The National Green Tribunal is yet to decide how much Art of Living will pay for damage to the Yamuna flood plains.

Metal rods that made up the World Culture Festival stage. (Photo: Siddharth Safaya)

Art of Living (AOL) prevented an expert committee from visiting the former site of the World Culture Festival, lawyers told the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday.

The committee was sent to the Yamuna flood plains to evaluate the damage caused by the World Culture Festival (WCF) by order of the tribunal. Reports from the committee will determine how much AOL has to pay for staging the festival in a zone deemed unfit for construction by the Tribunal.

These costs will be added to the Rs 5 lakh initial charge imposed by the NGT in a hearing on 9 March 2016. Evaluations by an expert committee before the festival found that preparations for the event had cleared and flattened more than 1000 acres of the flood plains by the Yamuna.

Grass is growing again on the plain and buffaloes are back to graze. (Photo: Siddharth Safaya)

The area is a crucial part of the Yamuna river ecosystem, and plays an important role as a natural water filter, petitioners against the AOL event say.

So far, AOL has paid Rs 25 lakh to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and requested that the rest of the payment be made as a bank guarantee, rather than a direct payment.

When asked why they had stopped the NGT’s expert committee last week, AOL told Justice Swatanter Kumar they had not yet vacated the plains when the committee arrived on 15 April. The area was cleared on 18 April, they added.

Justice Kumar reprimanded the organisation for “frustrating” the process of law and demanded further explanation when the hearings resume on Friday. Justices on the panel did not push AOL to make damage-related payments and decisions about the nature of the payments are yet to be made. Payments were originally due at the beginning of April.