New Delhi, Aug. 23 -- The Supreme Court on Saturday set aside an order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directing Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living Foundation (AOL) to pay Rs.5 crore in environmental compensation for restoring the Yamuna floodplains, where the World Culture Festival was held in 2016. The court pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold such an event on the ecologically sensitive Yamuna floodplains and directed the landowning agency to refund the Rs.5 crore within four weeks. Finding serious flaws in the reasoning and conclusion of the NGT's December 7, 2017 judgment, in a challenge by AOL's legal entity Vyakti Vikas Kendra, India, the top court said that the tribunal "burdened" AOL with the task of developing the floodplain that it "never destroyed". The judgment, by a bench of justices Satish Chandra Sharma and N Kotiswar Singh, read, "The Tribunal completely altered the character of the dispute before itself and converted it into a proceeding for fresh development of the Yamuna floodplain, and in doing so, it burdened the appellant to bear the expenses of such development activity. Effectively, the Tribunal burdened the appellant with the task of developing something that it never destroyed." The event was organised on 25 hectares of the floodplains, upstream of the DND Flyway, from March 11 to 13, 2016. While permitting DDA to continue with the rehabilitation of the floodplain as ordered by the NGT from time to time, the bench held, "The manner in which permission was granted by DDA to hold the event on an active floodplain of the river cannot be approved. It was not only avoidable, but was also not consistent with the precautionary principle and doctrine of public trust. The authority failed to act in accordance with its duties towards the public at large." However, it refrained from passing any order as the grant of permission was not under challenge. The counsel for AOL argued before the top court that the NGT required the organisation to deposit a sum of Rs.5 crore prior to the event based on a conclusion that the floodplain was damaged. Pursuant to the event, the tribunal relied on reports prepared by the expert committee, whose findings were under doubt, given that in one report, the committee reported extensive damage and in a subsequent report, admitted it was not possible "to determine the state of ecosystem to which restoration has to be carried out". Terming this as a "flip" by the committee, the bench stated, "We are afraid, the Tribunal got swayed by the expert committee's report that massive preparatory work is going on at the site and went on to conclude that by undertaking such work, the appellant has severely damaged the floodplain."...