The Hindu : New Delhi News : Supreme Court sets up panel for Red Fort renovation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 07, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Supreme Court sets up panel for Red Fort renovation

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 6. The Supreme Court today constituted a nine-member expert committee headed by the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to oversee the conservation and restoration work at the historic Red Fort in the Capital.

A three-judge bench comprising Justice Ruma Pal, Justice S.B. Sinha and Justice S.H. Kapadia constituted the committee during the hearing of a public interest litigation challenging the conservation and restoration work being undertaken at the 17th-century Moghul structure without adhering to the norms of preservation.

The court which had earlier stayed the conservation and renovation work at the Red Fort today made it clear that "No work shall be undertaken without express written permission of the committee".

The judges directed that the conservation work should be carried out with internationally accepted conservation principles.

The committee comprises former ASI Director-General J.P. Joshi, Prof. Nalini Thakur and Anuradha Chaturvedi of the School of Planning and Architecture; retired ASI Director W.H. Siddiqui and O.P. Aggarwal of the Lucknow-based Indian Council of Conservation Institute and Architecture Heritage; Mohd. Taheer, Director General of ASI; Additional Director General of ASI and Narayani Gupta.

The Bench permitted the Committee to devise its own method of working but no restoration work at the Red Fort would be carried out without written permission of the Committee.

The Expert committee would ensure that a comprehensive Conservation Management Plan, in accordance with the internationally accepted principles, was drawn up and take appropriate steps for the conservation and restoration of the monument, the Bench added.

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