Fresh plea to NGT: Review Sri Sri event

A fresh plea was filed before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday seeking review of the court’s order which had allowed the three-day cultural extravaganza of Art of Living on the floodplains of Yamuna citing delay by petitioners.

The plea, filed by Manoj Mishra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, has challenged the NGT order which had dismissed his petition on the ground of “delay and laches on the part of the applicant in approaching the Tribunal.” “It is submitted that the question of delay and latches would apply when an applicant watches the violation and springs into action after the construction is substantially completed. That is not the case here.”

The green panel on March 9 had refused to prohibit the “World Culture Festival” held under the patronage of spiritual guru Ravishankar but slapped a fine of '5 crore on his Art of Living (AOL) foundation for damaging biodiversity and aquatic life of Yamuna. “In the present case the construction by AOL was in violation of the tribunal’s judgment dated January 13, 2015 which was immediately brought to the notice of the tribunal by the applicant as a vigilant person... The question of delay and latches would not apply if the tribunal had stayed further development on 8th February 2016, the damage which took place subsequently till passing of the order dated March 9 would not have occurred,” the plea, filed through advocate Rahul Choudhary, said.

Mr Mishra has further said that he had also written a letter to the lieutenant governor of Delhi and Delhi Development Authority pointing out that there was a legal injunction on any new construction on the flood plain.