In a reprieve to Isha Foundation, the Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered the Tamil Nadu government not to proceed with any further action of prosecution on its show cause notice issued to the organisation led by Jaggi Vasudev.
The first bench of Acting Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice P D Audikesavalu restrained the District Environmental Engineer (DEE) of Coimbatore from proceeding with the notice issued for having constructed several buildings without obtaining environmental clearance. The High Court will take up the matter again on February 1.
The court also ordered notices to the Union and state governments while hearing the petition filed by Isha Foundation against a show cause notice issued by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) in November 2021 on environmental clearances for buildings constructed between 1994 and 2012.
The buildings house educational institutions that the foundation runs. The Foundation maintains that the notice is based on a wrong interpretation of a 2014 notification issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
"Our understanding is that an educational institute that is less than 1.5 lakh square meters in the area does not need environmental clearance. We had communicated this to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, which unfortunately did not consider our response,” a spokesperson for Isha Foundation said in a statement after the court order.
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