The All India Muslim Personal Law Board on Sunday removed a member for contradicting its stand on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title dispute, ANI reported.

The member, Maulana Salman Nadwi, had met Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Friday to discuss an out-of-court settlement. He was also seen in a video suggesting that the site of the Babri Masjid could be moved out of Ayodhya.

Another board member, Maulana Rahmani, had said that Nadwi met Ravi Shankar in his personal capacity. The board’s working committee also reportedly launched an investigation into the meeting.

“The board reiterated its uncompromising stand on Babri Masjid issue,” board member Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas told ANI. “Salman Nadwi is still speaking against the board’s stand. So the board was left with no other option. The committee has unanimously decided to remove him.”

The Art of Living founder, however, expressed his surprise over Nadwi’s expulsion on Twitter. “Several members of the board have met me and expressed their commitment to foster amity among Hindus and Muslims and to peacefully resolve this issue,” Ravi Shankar said.

The board was meeting in Hyderabad for its plenary conference, which ends on Sunday.

On Friday, the AIMPLB had said that only the Supreme Court’s verdict would be accepted in the dispute. The Supreme Court on Thursday had adjourned the hearing to March 14 as some documents and translations had not yet been filed. The court clarified that it would treat the matter as a “pure land dispute”.

The special bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer has taken up 13 appeals filed against the judgment of the Allahabad High Court, which ruled a three-way split of the disputed 2.77 acres in Ayodhya. The disputed plot has been divided among the Sunni Waqf Board, a Hindu organisation called the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla or Infant Rama, which is represented by the Hindu Mahasabha for the construction of the Ram temple.