N Sriram Reddy, an advocate, filed a public interest litigation alleging that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's ashram, had constructed luxurious structures illegally on the water spread area of Udipalya.
N Sriram Reddy, an advocate, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the high court alleging that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's ashram, Art of Living, had constructed luxurious structures illegally on the water spread area of Udipalya tank at Kaggalipura in Bangalore South.
The high court on Friday gave the advocate six weeks time to produce documents proving the charge.
Reddy claimed that the Art of Living ashram raised luxurious structures at Udipalyakere, in survey number 46, Kaggalipura.
The advocate said that the tank was constructed in 1960 to provide irrigation facilities to farmers nearby. It had a registered catchment area of 42.52 hectares, and water spread area of 14.8 hectares.
The Art of Living ashram, the advocate held, had taken up land, reducing the tank to just eight or 10 hectares in area. Besides, there is now no space on the eastern, western or northern side of the tank.
The advocate has claimed that the land was acquired by the Art of Living ashram without legal sanction; yet, the department of irrigation did not take any action against the ashram.
The petitioner contended that the compound wall and structures erected by the ashram had blocked the flow of water into the tank.
The advocate sought a direction from the court to demolish all illegal structures on the water spread area of 14.8 hectares and the registered area of 42.52 hectares and canal length of 1.6 metres on the left side and 1.8 metres on the right side of the tank.
The petitioner further sought to restrain the Art of Living from constructing any more illegal structures.
The division bench, headed by chief justice JS Khehar, on a request from the petitioner, granted him six weeks to submit relevant documents.
The case was adjourned to October 10. The petitioner reminded the court that the Supreme Court had held that tanks be restrained only for irrigation purposes, and not be utilised for other activities.
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