The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday, January 11, passed an interim order directing to maintain status quo at the Avalagurki village near Bengaluru, where the unveiling of the 112 feet Adiyogi Shiva statue and the opening of a centre of Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Foundation was scheduled to be held on Sunday. The unveiling ceremony is scheduled to be attended by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. The court was hearing a petition which alleged that a commercial enterprise was being set up in an ecologically fragile environment. The bench said it will hear the matter on Friday, and added that the interim order will remain till then.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale issued notices to the state, the yoga centre, and 14 other respondents, to halt activities in the area until Friday. The stay is in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) which alleged that a commercial enterprise was being set up in an ecologically fragile environment and that the government has illegally allotted land for the purpose. The PIL was filed by Kyathappa S and a few other villagers from Chikkaballapura taluk near Nandi Hills, where the yoga centre has been built. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Ecology, Karnataka government, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, and Isha Yoga Centre, Coimbatore, are among the 16 respondents in the litigation.
The petitioners alleged that a congregation of around five lakh people, as per the publicity given, would cause irreparable loss to flora and fauna, apart from demographical pressure owing to the movement of vehicles and people. The bench said it will hear the matter on Friday, and added that the interim order will remain till then.
Earlier, the court permitted the petitioners to carry out an amendment to incorporate additional grounds to challenge the March 6, 2019 order, wherein the state government permitted Isha Yoga Centre to purchase 83 acres and 28 guntas of land for educational purposes. The PIL alleges that the authorities allowed blatant violations in destroying the environment ecosystem, watershed, core command area of Nandi Hills, and NDB Foothills in Chikkaballapura Hobli to establish a private foundation at the instance of Jaggi Vasudev of the Isha yoga to establish commercial activities in the core area of the hillock.
The petitioners also cite that the authorities allowed for destructing and defacing the ecosystem, environment and natural rainwater streams, water bodies, and water feeder streams in the foothill of Nandi Hills and Narasimha Devaru Range (Betta) in violation of environmental laws, which have direct impact on the living, livelihood, cattle, sheep, wild animals, in the region of Nandi Hills.
The PIL claims that the rivers north Pinakini and south Pinakini originate in Nandi Hills, which would be affected. It also says that the Isha yoga centre brought a metal idol of Lord Shiva and assembled it, defacing the land in the installation process overnight.
With inputs from PTI