The Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with a Madras High Court order quashing a show cause notice issued to preacher Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Foundation for carrying out construction work at its Coimbatore campus without obtaining environmental clearance, reported Live Law.

Dismissing the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board’s challenge to the judgement, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and NK Singh directed that no coercive steps be taken in regards to the construction of the Isha Yoga and Meditation Centre.

The bench, however, clarified that the order should not be considered a precedent for regularising illegal constructions.

The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board had issued the show cause notice on November 19, 2021. It sought to prosecute the foundation for having constructed several buildings between 2006 and 2014 in the foothills of Velliangiri in Coimbatore district without obtaining prior environmental clearance.

Isha Foundation had challenged the board’s notice in the High Court in January 2022, arguing that the 2014 Environment Protection Amendment Rules granted retrospective exemption to educational institutions.

It also argued that it must be categorised as an educational institute because its yoga centre helps develop mental and physical health.

In December 2022, the High Court quashed the notice, stating that the foundation was exempted from seeking environmental clearance for construction activities because it came within the definition of an educational institution.

On Friday, the Supreme Court recorded the Isha Foundation’s statement that it would comply with the laws, reported Bar and Bench.

“If there is any need for expansion in future, let permission be sought from competent authority,” said the court.

On February 14, the top court criticised the Tamil Nadu Pollution Board for a two-year delay in filing its appeal against the High Court order.

“What prevented authorities from approaching this court in time?” the Supreme Court had asked the board. “When [the] state comes belatedly, we become suspicious.”

The construction in question was carried out in the Ikkarai Pooluvampatti village near Velliangiri hills in the Western Ghats of Coimbatore, the site of the foundation’s Isha Yoga Centre.

The village is notified under the Hill Area Conservation Authority, a body formed in 1991 by the Tamil Nadu government to protect hill areas from excessive commercialisation.

During an inspection in November 2012, the Coimbatore Town and Country Planning Department found that 60 buildings related to the foundation had been constructed without prior approvals. There were 34 other buildings under construction at that time.

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