Sadhguru allegations

Cases / Land and environment

Did Isha encroach on forest land?

By Sashank, a volunteer with Isha Foundation · · Not an official Isha statement

The claim

Petitions and posts say the Isha Yoga Center at Ikkarai Boluvampatti was built by encroaching on reserve forest, and that the Adiyogi site in particular is forest land.

What Isha puts on the record

Isha's answer is that the center stands on patta land bought from private owners, and that those survey numbers were private holdings before the foundation existed. The counter-proof it points to is in four layers.

First, a Tamil Nadu Forest Department counter-affidavit in writ petitions before the Madras High Court and the National Green Tribunal. The department's reference, as Isha quotes it, is CFCIT/07/2013. Isha says that affidavit records that the center has not infringed onto forest land and that there is no adverse impact on the surrounding flora and fauna. Second, a counter-affidavit by the Ministry of Environment and Forests before the National Green Tribunal, which Isha says repeats the same finding.

Third, survey maps. Isha publishes images of 1960 survey sheets traced from 1910 British maps, and of 1994 survey maps, and says the survey numbers it owns are marked as private holdings, with the reserve forest drawn separately. Fourth, Google Earth frames from 2006, 2012 and 2016, which Isha says show the Adiyogi site as open, fenced, dry private land or cultivation, not forest, as far back as the imagery goes.

A later Isha note, 28 July 2026, repeats the patta claim and adds an RTI reference, WL5/35913/2013, for the related corridor question. That is a separate page: is the center in an elephant corridor?

What this page is not

A 2021 Newslaundry report argued that large buildings on the campus went up without Hill Area Conservation Authority approval, and that the campus sits adjacent to the Ikkarai Boluvampatti reserve forest. Adjacent is not the same claim as encroachment. Building permission is on the next page. An FIR on land marked for tribal communities, mentioned in the October 2024 police status report, is also a different allegation, covered under tribal land.

Still missing: the CFCIT/07/2013 counter-affidavit and the ministry's NGT affidavit as PDFs. The survey sheets are on Isha's page as images, not as certified extracts. Send the affidavits to sadhguruallegations@gmail.com.

Sources

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