The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday termed as “very irresponsible” the public statements made by Art of Living (AOL) after an expert panel gave its report on the Yamuna that the organisation’s cultural extravaganza had “completely destroyed” the riverbed. The bench’s remarks came during the hearing when the counsel for AOL sought extension of time by three weeks for submitting its response to the expert committee’s report.
In its statement to the media, the AOL had termed the expert committee’s report, submitted to the NGT, as “biased” and said it “contains no analysis, no in-depth investigation, no reports of any scientific tests to support the conclusions. The conclusions in the report are merely the opinion of the expert committee without scientific basis. The report does not reflect the true state of the ground.” The issue came up when AOL’s counsel sought time to file a response to the report, while the counsel for petitioner and environmentalist Manoj Kumar Mishra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan said the organisation has already formed its opinion on it as it released the statement to the media just a day after expert panel’s report.
AOL’s advocate claimed that the organisation had not done any such thing as alleged by the opposite side and argued that it should not be made a media trial.Later the tribunal granted a week’s time to AOL to file its response to the committee’s report.
