Complaint filed against 6 unhappy residents: Auroville working committee

A day after police arrested six Aurovilians, including five foreign nationals, following a burglary complaint by Auroville authorities, the Working Committee (WC) issued a statement on Saturday deploring the filing of first information reports (FIR) as “a very unfortunate and avoidable action” and denied all charges.

On Wednesday, following a complaint filed by the Undersecretary of Auroville for “illegal takeover of the archives and communication systems” of the WC office, the Auroville police filed a complaint against Hemant Lamba, Sauro Mezzetti (Italian ), Lisa Neogy alias Renu (Swedish), Michel Grnoff alias Wazo (French), Suryan Stettner (British) and Chali Grinnell (American). They have been convicted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act, including for riot, forgery and computer crimes.

In the press release, the WC of the Residents’ Assembly (RA) of the Auroville Foundation said that the filing of complaints against residents, including the three duly ratified members of the WC, for an internal conflict goes to against the very spirit of Auroville. Calling this a very unfortunate and avoidable action, the committee also categorically denied the charges against the residents.

The new crisis had been precipitated after a recent split of the seven-member WC into two factions. After a group supported by the Auroville Foundation removed three members apparently for working against the foundation, the decision which was challenged on the grounds that it was irregular as only the RA was authorized to remove/elect members to the WC.

Despite a directive from the Auroville Foundation to suspend RA decision-making until a register of residents is updated to reflect the current demographics of Auroville Township, on May 10, an assembly of residents met and voted to retain the three evicted residents. Chali Grinnell, Sauro Mezzetti and Hemant Lamba while removing and replacing the four foundation-supported members.

The seven WC members were elected by the Residents’ Assembly in accordance with the provisions of the Auroville Foundation Act 1988, the WC statement said. The decision was challenged by the office of the secretary of the Auroville Foundation, but the duration of the mandate and the governance of the working group must be decided only by the residents as it is also mentioned in a note from the Ministry of Human Resources of February 2020, he says.