Art Of Living: It is not the amount, it is the principle

The Art of Living AOL led by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has been given a rap on the knuckles told to pay R475 crore as a fine the countryrsquos top green court said yesterday following it up with some trenchant criticism of the AOLThe AOL had been given the green signal with the threeday lsquoWorld Culture Festivalrsquo on the banks of the River Yamuna in March this year on the condition that it would pay a Rs 5crore penalty for damage to the arearsquos ecosystem The Culture Festival opened after the last gasp controversy playing host to thousands including PM Narendra ModiNot so fine with us AOLs Sri Sri Ravi ShankarAt that time AOL had paid up Rs 25 lakh saying they would pay the rest They then asked that the Rs 475 crore they owed be treated as a bank guaranteeYesterday the National Green Tribunal NGT accused AOL of using the court order to hold the event and then go back on its word The sum is not too much for Sri Srirsquos organization to cough up hardly an amount which will make the yoga and meditation enthusiasts suck in their collective breaths in dismay ldquobut it is not the sum it is the principlerdquo said AOLrsquos legal advisor Ketan DesaiDesai also accused the media of being very enthusiastic about using the term lsquofinersquo but this sum is a lsquocompensation depositrsquo not a fineWhen asked whether they were trying to use words simply to obfuscate the issue he stated ldquoit is important to clarify as the word fine implies that we AOL has done something wrong when in fact it has not Tell me which act or rule have we violatedrdquo he askedDesai added that they were ldquounhappyrdquo with the judgement It is not about ldquothe amount being big or smallrdquo said Desai when reminded that R475 crore was well within the means of the mega organization with thousands of wellheeled followers The Art of Living has never said that we donrsquot have funds ldquoThis is about standing up for the truthrdquo he stated rather dramaticallyDesai said AOL was unhappy about the preassessment of the site which was ldquodone unscientifically where the site was prejudged and an amount was fixedrdquoThe AOL had filed an application to reconstitute an independent and an unbiased expert committee to examine the impact of the World Culture Festival on the Yamuna floodplains on the ground that the existing committee had prejudged the issue and created a self imposed bias for itself The NGT yesterday offered to appoint two more members on the Committee on the condition that we withdraw our application and give up the grounds taken in itWe chose to argue our application as this committee had arrived at an arbitrary figure of Rs 120 crore based on a very brief lsquovisualrsquo assessment It has prejudged the issue they are currently under selfimposed pressure to justify that figure and have definitely created a bias for itself The application for reconstitution of the committee will now be taken up on July 4 In the meantime the existing committee has been asked to do the inspection the findings of which will be kept with the court in a sealed cover till July 4 The AOL added that any competent independent body could have come to assess the impact of our event on the Yamuna floodplainsDesai when told that there was a feeling that AOL had got away with holding the festival and was now trying to wiggle out without paying called allegations as ldquobald allegations by the mediardquo and advised ldquovisit the site of the Culture Festival It was once full of rubble today it is green and full of flora and faunardquo