By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Tuesday restrained the Gujarat government from demolishing any part of the historical Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, where Mahatma Gandhi lived for 13 years, to make way for a proposed road.
Restraining the Gujarat government, a bench of Justices S.B. Sinha and H.S. Bedi asked the state government to take a different way for a proposed road for which a part of the building was to be demolished in accordance with an Ahmedabad Development Authority (ADA) plan.
The bench asked the state government to stay clear of the hermitage on a petition by Sabarmati Harijan Ashram Trust, which had challenged a Gujarat High Court order approving the ADA plan to demolish part of the building.
The historical Gandhi hermitage is built over a sprawling 57,000 sq m campus in the city and ADA wants to acquire over 1,000 sq m to build a road through it.
Mahatma Gandhi had built Sabarmati Ashram in 1916 and stayed there for 13 years between 1917 and 1930, leading India’s freedom struggle.
Earlier, the Sabarmati Harijan Ashram Trust challenged the ADA’s plan for part-demolition of the building in the Gujarat High Court, which had dismissed the plea Feb 20 last year.
The trust subsequently challenged the high court ruling before the apex court.
The apex court Tuesday asked the Gujarat government to steer clear of the Ashram after the union ministry of culture told the court that it had got the matter examined by two eminent Gandhians, Nirmala Deshpande and V.R. Nanda.
The two have vehemently objected to the ADA plan, while the central government too feels that the building should not be demolished as it is of historical and monumental importance.