Told to vacate, IIAS looks for legal cure

Following the Supreme Court order directing the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) to vacate the Viceregal Lodge located here by De...

Following the Supreme Court order directing the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) to vacate the Viceregal Lodge located here by December end this year, the staff at IIAS appear to be a worried lot. When contacted, top officials at the institute said they were exploring ‘‘legal remedies’’ to the order.

At the same time, when contacted in New Delhi, Director IIAS Bhuvan Chandel said she had gone through the judgement and was seeking the opinion of legal experts on the issue. ‘‘I am talking to lawyers for legal remedies,’’ she said refusing to comment on the judgment.

Scholars, staff worried

SHIMLA: Anxiety is writ large on the faces of IIAS staff. Falling under the Human Resource Development Ministry, it has about 155 employees, including 29 research fellows, 22 assistant research fellows and eight non-resident fellows. When reached, none was ready to speak out. However, murmers like ‘‘We are looking up to senior officials’’ could be heard. (ENS)

She, however, stated that IIAS was the only ‘‘knowledge store-house’’ of its kind for the intellectual community in the nation to pursue higher research and philosphical pursuits. ‘‘The institute,’’ she said, ‘‘is the highest platform for intellectual deliberations.’’ As of now, there is no alternative site to shift the institution.

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In its order delivered on April 21, the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court stated that ‘‘the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies is given time to vacate the monument till December 30, 2003’’. The judgement was delivered on a public interest petition filed by Rajeev Mankotia in 1990, with the plea to protect the historical monument from decaying.

In 1998, the Apex Court had ordered that the Viceregal Lodge building be handed over to Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) for maintenance. The Court had also directed that the Lodge, along with 25 acres of surrounding land, be preserved as a heritage monument. Following that order, the Ministry of Human Resource Development had sought in a petition that IIAS be allowed to continue there and that ASI could take over the building’s maintenance the funds for which would be provided by IIAS itself.

This is not the first time that the institute has faced turbulent times. Since its inception on October 6, 1964, when President Radhakrishnan — who had a philosophical bent of mind — gifted the Rashtrapati Niwas for conducting research, the Institute had gone through similar travails and tribulations.

However, when the Janata government came to power in 1977, it constituted a committee which recommended closure of the institute which, it stated, ‘‘was nothing but a white elephant’’.

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In 1980, when Indira Gandhi resumed power, she revived the its functioning, but in 1989, the state BJP government proposed to shift the institute and convert the building into a five-star hotel. The move was challenged then and the institute continued to function till date.