SRINAGAR, Dec 16:
The State High Court (HC) has directed the authorities to file a status report about measures being taken to recover 209 antique items, including Kashmiri coins to different museums and universities.
The survey conducted on the directions of the HC in July this year highlights some peculiar features which do not leave good taste in mouth, a Division Bench of the HC comprising Chief Justice, M M Kumar and Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar said.
The court had passed an order on July 23,ordering to constitute a three-member committee comprising Peerzada Mohammad Ashraf, Deputy Director Archives, Archaeology and Museums, Jammu, Kirpal Singh. Curator, Dogra Art Museum, Jammu and Museum Assistant SPS Museum, Srinagar.
The court had passed the order on a petition filed by General Secretary of the Valley Citizen Council (VCC) Imdad Saqi in 2008, alleging that a large number of historically important items,including Kashmiri coins, Paintings, Sanskrit manuscripts, Persian manuscripts and old guns were gifted to different museums and universities or stolen and no measures were being taken to recover them.
The bench in its latest order on December 11 has now listed the case on February 12, 2013.
The court had directed the Director Archives, Archeology and Museum to send experts to make survey of the available articles in the museum and submit a complete report.
The bench said that it has come on record that a large number of items have been given on loan by the museum to Central Asian Museum (CAM), Kashmir University (KU), Motilal Nehru Children Museum, Lucknow and Shimla Museum.
The report shows that items including coins of Kashmir, painting, Sanskrit manuscript, Persian manuscript and old guns were gifted to the museum which was to be set up at Shimla.
It further said that a large number of items have been seized by Anti-Corruption Bureau on August 1,1964. But these items have not been recovered.
The committee has suggested that steps should be taken to take possession of seized antique items, the court said.
The survey said that paintings, manuscripts and textile gallery are damaged and needs delicate handling for their immediate restoration.
The court said that to treat all these items with any worthwhile material esperts have to be consulted.
Justice Kumar and Attar said that they have noticed in the orders passed earlier, some items have been stolen which include a manuscripts of Holy Quran bearing the seal of Emperor Aurangzeb which was stolen on November 11,2003.
But the FIR registered in this connection has been closed as ‘untraced’, the court said adding other stolen items included seated wooden Budha, standing Tara Bronze, the Diety, one brass image of Jain Tirthakar seated, one brass image of Budha seated on earth touching mudhra and one standing Budha from Nagapatnam.
Meanwhile, the Additional Advocate General (AAG) has assured the court that all possible steps for recovering the loaned items, finding out the stolen items and for restoring the damaged items are being taken.
The court however said that no concrete suggestions have been given to recover antique items given on loan to Central Asian Museum and Kashmir University.(UNI)
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