The Delhi high court has asked the Centre, the city administration as well as municipal authorities and the DDA to ensure that the forests in Mehrauli Archaeological Park were protected from encroachment by building a boundary wall at its western and southern sides.
Referring to a map placed before it by Delhi government’s revenue department, a bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva said, “There appears a move towards encroachment” on the western and southern sides and asked the authorities to build a wall to curb it. The map was submitted by the government subsequent to a demarcation exercise carried out by it on the court’s orders.
The government, however, said it was only a draft map and it would be finalised after marks are also made on the ground. Thereafter, the court directed that the final map be submitted by superimposing it upon an aerial or satellite image of the area “so that extent of encroachment can be ascertained and extent of protected forests can be seen”.
The court also said that any further demarcation exercise, if any, would be carried out by the government after giving advance notice to all other authorities concerned, including the DDA, the ASI and municipal bodies, as well as the petitioner organisation — Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).
The direction was issued after the authorities and INTACH claimed in court that they were not given advance notice before the demarcation was carried out. The court was hearing a PIL moved by INTACH seeking that the Archaeological Park, spread over 100 acres and having about 80 monuments, be “preserved, protected and maintained.”
In its plea, the INTACH said, “The monuments of the park range from grand structures like Quli Khan’s tomb, Balban’s Tomb, Maulana Jamali’s mosque and tomb and Rajon ki Baoli, to several minor monuments that together constitute a huge cultural asset and potential heritage recreation space for the city.”
The NGO said the park had been encroached at several places and was under constant threat of further encroachments. It alleged that an ASI notified monument — Tomb of Khan Shahid — has been “whitewashed and defaced”, which it claimed was a precursor to encroachment.
