The NGT committee is biased and unscientific, lacks credibility

All facts point to the mala fide intention to malign The Art of Living

Bangalore: The expert committee of the NGT is clearly biased. The points below illustrate their bias amply:

1. A perfunctory inspection was carried out at the World Culture Festival ground before the event. After this they came up with a random figure of Rs 120 crore to be paid as compensation. Later, The Art of Living discovered a letter by the Chairman of the Expert Committee Mr. Shashi Shekhar written to the NGT admitting that this was an “inadvertent mistake”. This is clear proof of their premeditated stand.
   Having already made this mistake, it is very clear that they have now submitted a report only to justify the conclusions that they had reached earlier otherwise it will discredit. Therefore, knowing about their existing mistake and bias this committee was not the right one to investigate the matter and make a report. The tribunal should have appointed an independent committee of experts as we had asked to do this investigation. This report is absolutely baseless and has no credibility. How can such a report be accepted?
2. One of the expert committee members, Prof C R Babu has been canvassing the petitioner Manoj Misra’s case before the media! He has given an interview to the media maligning The Art of Living and concluding that damage has been done by us even before doing any assessment. This clearly shows his bias.
3. Yet another expert committee member of the NGT, Prof Brij Gopal has close connections with the petitioner, Manoj Misra. He has since a last few years done joint investigations of another project with the petitioner, undertaken projects with him, travelled with him. These facts were not disclosed to us before.
   The recent report shows no application of mind. There is no reasoning that support the conclusions they have seem to have come to. There is no analysis, no in-depth investigation nor any test reports to support these conclusions. Once again the conclusions of their report is merely the opinion of the expert committee. It does not depict the true state of the WCF ground. How can such a report with no scientific study or no credibility be entertained?
4. The report is unscientific in its assessment. Any scientific assessment must have a quantifiable element to it. But after four months, the committee has only not been able to attach a single evaluation to quantify the so-called damage that they have reported. This raises serious questions about the committee’s credibility.
5. The committee has classified the WCF ground as a “wetland”. However, the Wetland Atlas of Delhi that was released recently and the 1986 survey of India map or any other authentic government documentation does not show this land as a “wetland”. By labelling this as a wetland, the committee is manipulating it to bring it under the gamut of environmental clearance. The truth is that this land has always been classified as a floodplain, a sandy floodplain.
6. The entire talk about compaction is again totally a mindless one. As scientific evidence clearly states that the characteristic of a sandy soil or a riverbed soil is that it can never be compacted!
7. It is absolute rubbish that we have flattened the land. If we have flattened the land, how come it has been depicted as flat land in 1985.
   Whatever has been stated by this expert committee holds no water. Considering these and more such facts, it is clear that the intent of the committee is to merely malign the name of The Art of Living.
   The kind of evidence submitted by this committee amounts to nothing less than a scientific fraud.

Proximity between NGT petitioner in the WCF case Manoj Misra & NGT principal committee member Prof. Brij Gopal, who is also part of the current damage assessing team:

1. Joint Lecture:
   http://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/living-rivers-dying-rivers-river-yamuna
   Here, expert committee member Prof. Brij Gopal and Manoj Misra were speakers in 2013. Their association is an old one. Also, worthy to note that he says Yamuna is already dead in this report.
2. Joint visit to River Ken: 
   https://sandrp.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/river-ken-as-i-saw-it/ & 
   https://twitter.com/indian_rivers/status/746715942823075840
   They had a close rapport to visit river Ken together.
3. Joint drafting of Delhi Declaration: 
   http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Citizens-charter-votes-against-linking-rivers/articleshow/45784519.cms
   Together they have opposed the interlinking of the rivers.