National Gandhi Museum is an independent body: Centre to Delhi High Court

NEW DELHI: Government has informed Delhi High Court that it has no control over the management of National Gandhi Museum, whose aim is to promote and propagate the life, work and philosophy of the father of the nation.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw was also told by the Centre that the National Gandhi Museum and the authority responsible -- Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya Samiti -- was an independent body.

"Respondents (National Gandhi Museum and its authority) are an independent body and we (the Centre) have no control over it," the counsel appearing for the Centre said.

His oral response came during the hearing of a PIL which sought direction to the government to take over management of National Gandhi Museum and three other museums to safeguard the films, rare letters, photographs and other historic items related to Mahatma Gandhi.

The court, thereafter, asked the Ministry of Culture and the Delhi government to file their responses through affidavits before April 8, the next date of hearing.

The petition, filed by advocate G L Verma, alleged there have been "grave financial irregularities apart from disappearance of rare Gandhian legacy including letters, films, photographs, historic items such as blood-stained clothes and lathi used by Mahatma Gandhi during Dandi March as all of them have been either replaced or damaged".

It has claimed that the government took no action on the recommendations of Justice Kudal Commission, which was set up in 1981 to inquire into the misuse of foreign and state funds by NGOs working in the name of Mahatma Gandhi "without being accountable for their acts of omission and commission".

Expressing concern over protecting the Gandhian legacy for the interest of the country and future generations, the lawyer sought a special scrutiny and audit into the working of the National Gandhi Museum by the government in the light of observations of Kudal Commission.