Plea against ASI, Agra Development Authority for allowing damage to Taj Mahal
India Today
A plea has been filed in a court in Agra accusing the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Agra Development Authority (ADA) of allowing damage to the Taj Mahal during the Urs celebration.
Soon after the Allahabad High Court rejected the petition that sought to open the 22 locked rooms of the Taj Mahal, another plea has been filed in a court in Agra accusing the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Agra Development Authority (ADA) for allowing damage to the Taj Mahal during the 367th Urs of Shah Jahan.
The plea, filed by Umesh Chandra Verma, has named the ASI Director, ASI Agra Superintendent, and the ADA Vice Chairman in the petition, accusing them of carelessly allowing over one lakh people to enter the Taj Mahal unrestricted, which resulted in grave damages to the monument. The Chief Judicial Magistrate, Agra, has set the date of hearing in this case as June 16.
Verma is also the president of the Citizen Forum Organisation, which works on creating awareness towards environmental protection and conservation of historical monuments.
The plea mentioned that the ASI and ADA allowed free entry of the public for three days into the Taj Mahal during the Urs, which not only caused revenue loss worth several lakhs to the government but also damaged the marble structure. It also claimed that the ASI violated Section 5 of the ASI Act, 1958 under which it has been provisioned that if any community uses a part of any monument for religious purposes, the ASI shall make proper arrangements for the protection and conservation of that part of the monument.
However, legal experts said that certain points made in the plea are not maintainable in court since the permission to celebrate the Urs has been given by the Supreme Court, which had mandated free entry into the Taj during the three days of Urs.
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A senior ASI official told India Today that the National Monuments Authority (NMA) has prepared 100 heritage by-laws since 2019 for 126 protected monuments. The by-laws prepared for the Taj Mahal, Qutb Minar, Dwarikadhish Temple, Khemju Cave in Leh, and Martand Temple in Kashmir, are awaiting ASI approval; after which, they will be presented before the Parliament for approval.
