Bangalore, May, 31, 2016: The Art of Living had filed an application to reconstitute an independent and an unbiased expert committee to examine the alleged 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 today offered to appoint two more members on the Committee on the condition that we withdraw our application and give up the grounds taken in it.
We did not accept the offer as we are not willing to give up the very valid grounds taken up in our Application. We chose to argue our application as this committee had arrived at an arbitrary figure of Rs.120 crore based on a very brief 'visual' assessment, without any scientific process. It has pre-judged the issue, they are currently under self-imposed 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. So, the report of the committee will anyway be subject to our application.
The Art of Living reiterates that we want a free and fair assessment. Any competent independent body could have come to assess the impact of our event on the Yamuna floodplains.
