The Madras High Court's bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Krishnakumar ruled on December 14 that because Jaggi Vasudev's Isha foundation undertakes group development activities and runs a Yoga Centre, it will be considered an educational institute and thus be entitled to the exemption granted by the Central government from seeking prior environmental clearance for construction activities.

As a result, the court granted the Isha Foundation's petition and quashed a show cause notice issued by the Tamil Nadu government to the Foundation on November 19, 2021, alleging violation of environmental standards in the construction of its Coimbatore campus.

The Foundation had maintained that since it was a yoga institute, it helped develop one's mental and physical health and, therefore, must be categorised as an educational institute.

It contested the TN government's show cause notice, claiming that the 2014 Environment Protection Amendment Rules were an extension of the 2006 Rules and were added to clarify that educational institutes, industrial sheds, hostels, hospitals, seminaries, and other institutions could benefit from the exemption.

R Shunmugasundaram, the TN Advocate General, argued that the Foundation's claim to be an educational institute was "disputed."

He had stated that even if one accepted that the Foundation's Yoga centres could qualify as educational institutes, such educational structures came to measure only around 10,000 square metres of the over 1.25 lakh square metres of the Foundation's Coimbatore premises.

The Court accepted Isha Foundation's contention and ruled that "the one lakh twenty five thousand square metres of group development construction will fall within the scope of amended notification in our view."

"When the fourth respondent (TN Pollution Control Board) has admitted that the construction undertaken is for group development/yoga centre, a careful reading of the Union government's Office Memorandum shows that yoga centre comes within the definition of educational institutions and it comes within the exemption. The petitioner is therefore, excluded from getting prior sanction as per the December 22, 2014 notification," the Court said.

Case Title: Isha Foundation v Union of India and Others
Citation: WP/467/2022