The Delhi High Court on Wednesday rejected a plea by a man seeking a direction to the Centre to give funds for protection and maintainance over 400 artefacts and articles belonging to Constitution-framer Bhim Rao Ambedkar.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw disposed of the PIL filed by Mithilesh Kumar Pandey and asked the petitioner to approach "the High Court of Bombay at Nagpur as it would be the appropriate forum for dealing with the matter and for granting the relief if any..." "The petitioner (Pandey) is unable to show us any provision of law or any policy or scheme under which the petitioner/respondent no.5 (Indian Buddhist Council) is entitled to financial assistance as is sought.
"We even otherwise find it strange that such financial assistance be given to a private museum for preservation of artifacts/articles. We have thus enquired from the petitioner as to why the said artefacts are not offered to the National Museum and which, if it decides to take over the same, would axiomatically also take steps for preservation thereof.
"The petitioner stated that the museum had in fact offered the said articles to the National Museum but the same were not taken over. However, none of the letters/ representations filed by the petitioner before us contain any such offer," the court observed.
The court also said that the petitioner has no authority from the private museum to which the said artefacts belong. "We have also wondered as to why the said private museum, if desirous of any such relief, has not approached the Courts directly," the bench said.
\The bench also pulled up the petitioner for filing the PIL saying that "instead of filing proceedings on behalf of the private museum, he has chosen to file this as a PIL and which is unexplainable".
The court, however, expressed its "confidence that if the articles are offered to the National Museum, such offer shall be considered in appropriate perspective and in right earnest". The court's order came on a plea which contended that the museum has written to Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) several times seeking funds for maintenance of these objects or requesting ASI to preserve these articles. However, ASI is yet to take any concrete action in protecting these articles, it claimed.
The PIL, filed through advocate Ajit Sharma, had alleged that though the Minister of Culture and Tourism had in 2008 directed ASI to preserve these articles of national importance, action is yet to be taken.
Over 400 articles belonging to Ambedkar have been lying at the private museum at Nagpur and they are in stages of spoilage and destruction due to non-availability of adequate funds for their protection, the PIL had claimed.
"Article 49 of the Constitution, part of the Directive Principles of State Policy, expressly provide that it shall be the obligation of the state to protect every object of artistic or historical interest from spoilage, disfigurement, destruction, disposal etc," the plea had said.
The petition had made Union of India, ASI, Dr Ambedkar Foundation, Nagpur Improvement Trust, Indian Buddhist Council Shantivan and a private news channel party in the case.
It had further said that "the technology available for preserving the clothes, manuscripts and articles of Ambedkar is with the government only and is otherwise unavailable to the various trusts involved in conservation of Ambedkar's articles".
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