Lucknow:In a major development, which would go a long way in the protection and preservation of our cultural Heritage, The Hon’ble High Court, Lucknow Bench, (Hon’ble Mr Justice Imtiyaz Murtaza and Hon’beLe Mr Justice D.K.Upadhyaya) on hearing a PIL for the conservation of protected monuments (Syed Mohammad Haider Rizvi v. Union of India and others) , (PIL No. 3173(MB-PIL) of 2013 ) and removal of encroachments in and around the protected monuments has constituted a High Powered Committee ,under the Chairmanship of the Divisional Commissioner, Lucknow , with the Registrar of the Hon’ble High Court as the Convenor of the said Committee. The Said Committee would have the DIG Lucknow,the DM Lucknow, Secretary LDA, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Lucknow , Chief Engineer, Zone
1, Lucknow (PWD) , Superintending Archaeologist of the A.S.I. Jaideep Narayan Mathur (Senior Advocate) , Ms. Vipul Varshney (Convenor- INTACH, Lucknow Chapter) and S.M.Haider Rizvi (The Petitioner) as the Members.
The Hon’ble Court was appalled to know about the growing encroachments around the protected monuments and the administrative apathy, which was resulting in the growing trend of the encroachments within and around these monuments. The Hon’ble Court perused the list of encroachers
filed by the petitioner as also the list of the encroachers prepared by the ASI, which indicated that the ASI has given notices in 364 cases. On a specific query with respect to the number of final notices issued to the Encroachers by the ASI , the counsel for the ASI sought time to come back to the Court.
The Court has directed the ASI to file its affidavit on the encroachments , and action taken by it for their removal . The Hon’ble Court has directed the registrar of the Court to communicate the order to all the members of the committee , and has called upon the respective members to be present before the
Hon’ble Court on the 23rd of October 2013 , when the case is listed for the next hearing.