Hearing to continue on contempt petition against Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) will today continue the hearing on a contempt petition against Art of Living (AOL) founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar for his alleged defamatory statements against the tribunal with respect to environmental degradation on the Yamuna floodplains.

Earlier on April 28, AOL spokesperson Jaideep Nath said it was a factually incorrect that they had received contempt petition.

Nath said one should get down to the core facts of the case and debate in the court for the truth to prevail.

On April 27, the NGT issued a notice to spiritual figure Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on a contempt plea against him for blaming the Centre and the panel for damaging Yamuna floodplains by allowing his NGO's cultural extravaganza held there.

The spiritual leader had on April 18 stated that the NGT should be slapped with a fine for giving permission to the three-day event organised by the Art of Living.

A contempt plea against Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was moved in the NGT on Wednesday by Manoj Mishra, convenor of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan.

The statement further read, "This is the second time we have been misrepresented. Last time as well, the court never even once mentioned the name of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as reported by some media. In fact, the court turned down every request put up by petitioner Manoj Mishra."

The AOL called upon the media houses that have wrongly reported that "a contempt notice has been issued to produce the Order (of the Hon'ble NGT) on the basis of which they have published such a statement."

It is alleged that the AOL event on March 11-13, 2016, badly damaged the environment. The NGT had imposed an interim environment compensation of Rs. 5 crore on the AOL till the exact cost of the damage was ascertained.