HC had expressed concern over the Red Fort Control

NEW DELHI, DEC 25: The issue of multiple management of the Red Fort where militant struk last week killing three people including two army...

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NEW DELHI, DEC 25: The issue of multiple management of the Red Fort where militant struk last week killing three people including two army personnel has been pending in the Delhi High Court for about two years, which recently had expressed grave concern over Centre’s failure to take a firm decision about the control and maintenance of the monument.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Arijit Passayat and Justice D K Jain had pulled up the Centre for taking the matter lightly despite repeated reminders for making its stand clear on the issue.

The matter was brought before the High Court in a Public Interest Lititation (PIL) by the Socity for Protection of Heritage and Culture (SPHC), which said that multiple control of the Fort by different agencies, was mainly responsible for its "poor maintenance and deteriorating condition".

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The SPHC had sought removal of all occupants including the Army and shopkeeprs from the Meena Bazar" inside the Fort and hand over its control to the Archeaological Survey of India (ASI) so that it could be maintained as a monument of great National importance.

Claiming that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1974 had recommended removal of the Army from the Fort, SPHC counsel Usha Kumar said that former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma had in July 1998 directed MCD to remove the shops from the monument.

While Additional Solicitor General K K Sud informed the bench that the Government had set up a committee to coordinate between the concerned ministries, the court said it was aware how things moved in government departments.

SPHC had said that the Red Fort had a special significant in country’s history because the first war of independence was fought under last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1857 from there and a century later British Government had tried soldires of Indian National Army (INA) at the fort.

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Last Year the court had issued notices to ministries of Home, Defence, Human Resource Development, ASI, the Delhi Government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), seeking their replies on the issue raised in the PIL.

The SPHC counsel Kumar had stated that some places inside the Fort had virtually become a public nuisance and presented an "ugly" picture to thousands of tourists including foreigners, who visited the monument every year.

Listing a series of violations by various occupants of the Fort area, the Heritage Society alleged that 37 shops in Chhatta Chowk (Meena Bazar) were merely paying Rs. 17,213 as rent to MCD and some shopkeepers had carved out additional space from the existing ones by puncturing the monument’s wall and leased them out on "pagri (advance)" as high as Rs. 50 lakh unauthorisedly.

“It will pain the hearts of all Indians who hold the freedom fighters in high esteem that the underground cells in which scores of INA soldiers and other revolutionaries were kept, have become a garbage dumping place,” the PIL said.

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Similar was the fate of Mughal period "Baoli" adjacent to the cells, it said adding some "ugly" structures had been built near the Rang Mahal, Dewan-E-Khas and Mumtaz Mahal’s palace, presently housing a museum while cells on eastern side of the Fort wall were being used as lavatories.