The Hindu : New Delhi News : `Why Jama Masjid is not a protected monument?'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 28, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Why Jama Masjid is not a protected monument?'

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Union Government to place before it certain files of the Union Ministry of Culture and Tourism to ascertain the facts as well as reasons on which the Ministry had decided not to declare the historic Jama Masjid here as a protected monument.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice B.C. Patel and Justice S.K. Kaul ordered summoning of the files when it was informed by Usha Kumar, the petitioner in the matter, that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had sent a letter to the Shahi Imam of the mosque informing him that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism had decide not to declare the mosque a protected monument.

Ms. Kumar made the submission during the hearing of her public interest litigation seeking directions to the Union Government and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to declare the mosque a protected monument. Earlier, the Government had submitted that since the monument was a property of the Wakf Board, it could not be notified a protected one before taking its opinion. The Board on Wednesday opposed the petition submitting that the declaration of the monument a protected one would hurt the religious sentiments of the devotees who visit it to offer prayers as the ASI does not allow offering of prayers inside a protected monument.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi