The Delhi High Court today rejected a plea by a man seeking a direction to the Centre to give funds for protection and maintainance over 400 artefacts and articles belonging to Constitution-framer Bhim Rao Ambedkar.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw disposed of the PIL filed by Mithilesh Kumar Pandey and asked the petitioner to approach "the High Court of Bombay at Nagpur as it would be the appropriate forum for dealing with the matter and for granting the relief if any..."
"The petitioner (Pandey) is unable to show us any provision of law or any policy or scheme under which the petitioner/respondent no.5 (Indian Buddhist Council) is entitled to financial assistance as is sought.
"We even otherwise find it strange that such financial assistance be given to a private museum for preservation of artifacts/articles. We have thus enquired from the petitioner as to why the said artefacts are not offered to the National Museum and which, if it decides to take over the same, would axiomatically also take steps for preservation thereof.
"The petitioner stated that the museum had in fact offered the said articles to the National Museum but the same were not taken over. However, none of the letters/ representations filed by the petitioner before us contain any such offer," the court observed.
The court also said that the petitioner has no authority from the private museum to which the said artefacts belong.
"We have also wondered as to why the said private museum, if desirous of any such relief, has not approached the Courts directly," the bench said.
