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ShareNew Delhi: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is supposed to preserve ancient and protected monuments across the country, but since 2006, it has been doing just the opposite, the Delhi high court has said.
Since July 2006, the ASI has permitted on 116 occasions construction or renovation activity within hundred metres of ancient monuments in Delhi alone. The approvals were granted by a six-member expert advisory committee set up on July 20, 2006. The panel, headed by the director-general of ASI and comprising eminent historians, town planners and architects, processed 400 applications from across the country (150 from Delhi) seeking similar permissions.
The approvals go against a central government notification issued in 1992, according to which no construction activity is allowed within 100 metres of ancient or protected monuments. The Ancient Monuments Archaeological Sites and Remains Act of 1958 describes the 100-metre limit as "prohibited area".
The ASI was rebuked by a Delhi high court bench of chief justice AP Shah and justice S Muralidhar for conducting an "exercise without the authority of law" and the expert advisory panel was called "illegal". "We have no doubt that the committee, formed with the approval of the minister for culture and tourism, for advising the director-general on granting permission for construction/renovation in a prohibited area was without any legal basis," the court ruled.
The matter was brought to the court's notice through a writ petition by supreme court advocate Gaurang Kanth. The petition challenged a permission granted by the committee to EMCA Construction Company for reconstructing a property within 86 metres of Humayun's Tomb in Nizamuddin East area of the national capital. Interestingly, Kanth too has an office within 82 metres of the monument. Now, the court has asked the Centre to tell Kanth why he can't renovate/reconstructhis own property.
The court has also told the ASI to stop accepting new proposals and instructed it to reconsider all approvals granted since July 2006. The bench also expressed concern over the ASI's functioning, saying, "The ASI, which is entrusted with the constitutional and statutory responsibility of ensuring preservation of our ancient and protected monuments, is facilitating the violation of the notification by granting permission for construction in protected areas."
The bench noted, "The committee, which has no legal basis for its functioning, has been granting permissions for constructions within 100 meters of protected monuments without any guidelines. For the ASI to set up a committee to consider relaxation of that norm (set in the 1992 notification) is unacceptable and impermissible."
Though the court took a stern view of the ASI's committee, it did not make any observation about construction activities that took place after the 1992 notification and before the ASI committee was set up.
"My property was built in 2002. There are at least a dozen other buildings that have come up post the 1992 notification, all within 100 meters of Humayun's Tomb. All these are illegal but the court did not take any of them into account," Kanth said.
