New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday said that it was the constitutional mandate of the government to maintain and preserve the country’s heritage and culture as it asked the government to undertake the security and maintenance of historic artefacts by technically trained people.
“The challenges pointed out by the (authorities), who are running and managing museums, that there are space constraints, manpower shortage and lack of other resources need to be looked into by the ministry of culture and other concerned authorities and appropriate monitoring mechanism needs to be put in place” said a bench of Justice T.S.Thakur and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel in their judgment.
Justice Goel, pronouncing the judgment said: “Requisite funds have to be allocated so as to ensure safe keeping of the valuable artefacts. It can hardly be gainsaid that preservation of rich heritage and culture of the country is a constitutional mandate.”
Accepting the assurance given by the government and other authorities, the court felt that it was not be “necessary to give any specific direction at this stage”.
Saying that there was no “reason to doubt the stand of the central government and the other respondents that all necessary steps will be taken and reviewed from time to time”, the court said that it “expects that the secretary, ministry of culture will review the matter and take such necessary steps as may be identified within one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this order”.
Thereafter, the court said “review meetings may be held at least once in every six months to consider further course of action. If any grievance survives, it will be open to any aggrieved person to take legal remedies in accordance with law”.
The court said while disposing of a PIL seeking the protection of historical objects preserved at different places in the country particularly in various museums.
The PIL petitioner Subhas Datta had also sought direction for adequate security arrangements and also proper investigation into the incidents of theft and damage to several historical objects. The PIL had also sought the making an inventory of available historical articles for future.
Datta moved the apex court in 2004 in the wake of the reports of the theft of historical artefacts of Rabindra Nath Tagore, kept in the Visva-Bharati University museum at Santiniketan. The petitioner had also made reference to the stealing of golden coins from the Asiatic Society of Calcutta in 1990, the theft from the Nandan Art Gallery in 1984 and the incidents of thefts in Victoria Memorial in Kolkata.