Aerial view of Quila Mubarak
The Punjab and Haryana High Court wants to know whether the government of India has declared Quila Mubarak a protected monument.
The Bench of Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and Justice Jasbir Singh has also impleaded the Union of India, through the department of archeology, as a respondent.
The notice has been received by the Union of India’s standing counsel, OS Batalvi. The matter will now come up for further hearing before the Bench on April 17.
The query follows a petition filed against the state of Punjab and other respondents by Raj Kumar of Nabha and another petitioner. They were seeking directions to the respondents to quash the proceedings dated April 17, 2007, based on the state’s decision to lease out Quila Mubarak in Patiala district for 66 years. This, they had claimed, was illegal and without jurisdiction.
As the matter came up for hearing, the Bench observed: “It is not known whether the government of India has, at any stage, examined whether the fort in question, including the structure standing in the same, fall within the purview of the Ancient Monument and Preservation Act, 1904, or the Ancient Monument and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
“It is also not known whether the government of India has declared the fort and the structure as an ancient or protected monument. In these circumstances, we consider it just and proper to add as a party respondent the Union of India….”
Quila Mubarak forms the core around which the walled city of Patiala developed. It dates back to 1763 AD. Baba Ala Singh, founder of Patiala dynasty, built a “kachigarhi” or a mud fortress and named it Quila Mubarak. Later, it was reconstructed with baked bricks.
The Quila is spatially preceded by the Quila Chowk and encircled by three major commercial spines, the Gur Mandi, Bajaja Bazaar and Shah Nashin Bazaar. The Adalat Bazaar starts from the Quila and terminates at the Anardana Chowk.
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