The Madras High Court stayed the move by the Tamil Nadu government to shift the Anna Centenary Library to the proposed Integrated Knowledge Centre at Egmore in Chennai.
The Madras High Court on Friday stayed the move by the Tamil Nadu government to shift the Anna Centenary Library to the proposed Integrated Knowledge Centre at Egmore in Chennai.
A bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam issued notice to the government and asked it to file a reply in six weeks. The petition challenging the government move was filed by P Pugalenthi, who claimed the November 1 decision of the state cabinet to shift the library is arbitrary, unfair and unreasonable.
The AIADMK government headed by Jayalalithaa had decided on Tuesday to convert the Anna Centenary Library constructed and inaugurated during the Karunanidhi regime into a super specialty hospital exclusively for children.
ACL, South Asia’s largest library with a collection of more than 5.5 lakh books, was built at a cost of Rs 172 crore and was thrown open to the general public by the then chief minister M Karunanidhi on September 15, 2010. The library hogged international limelight when Hillary Clinton, the US state secretary addressed a select gathering during her official visit to Chennai last July.
The ACL had become a major landmark in Chennai due to its aesthetically designed structure. The Indian Green Building Council had issued Gold Rating to the environment friendly library because of its energy efficiency. Many intellectuals have questioned the move to shift the library from its present position.
Political observers describe this action as a move by the AIADMK government to demolish all major landmarks that were constructed and inaugurated during the DMK regime.
Interestingly, the ACL was built by the DMK regime at a site near the Anna University campus where Jayalalithaa during her earlier tenure as chief minister (2001 to 2006) had decided to build a new secretariat. But she was forced to drop the plan in the face of strong opposition from civil society.
The Karunanidhi government used the plot of land to build the state-of-the-art library. The DMK government also constructed a new secretariat which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi on March 13, 2010.But the entire secretariat could not be shifted to the new building because some of the works could not be completed as scheduled.
Jayalalithaa, who was sworn in as chief minister for the fourth time on May 16, 2011 decided to shift the secretariat and assembly back to Fort St Geroge, the previous headquarters of the Tamil Nadu administration. The new secretariat has been converted into a medical college and super specialty reference hospital for the poor.
She also ordered a probe into the irregularities associated with the construction of the secretariat. A retired judge of the Madras High Court is holding an enquiry into the whole episode.
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