SHIMLA, Nov 24: Residents of Shimla have seen many of Shimla's beautiful buildings, either reduced to ashes by fire or simply demolished - ostensibly for making room for multi-storied concrete structures.The latest building being demolished is the 148-year old Ravenswood building, standing in the heart of the Himachal Pradesh High Court complex.However, it is too late to hope for a new lease of life for the building, as nearly a two-dozen strong labour force is on the job to bring down the building, which just seven years ago was buttressed and strengthened at a cost of about Rs 1 crore. It is considered one of the beautiful pieces of hill architecture and even engineers say that the building can last for another 100 years. The offices located in the two-storey building including the high court registrar's chamber have already been shifted to an adjacent building that was constructed in the early seventies.The portion being used by the lawyers as the Bar room and the library will be demolished after the high court closes for the winter vacations, said an engineer of the Public Works Department. The lawyers, however, are up in arms, opposing the "hasty" move of knocking down the building, without waiting for the completion of the 12-storey (highest building of the town) building in the high court complex. How can we work with dust and pollution all around?" says a senior Bar member, K S Patial, who is also president of the high court bar association. Patial said that the association was sending a written representation to the chief justice to lodge their complain about pollution and also make a plea, seeking a new lease of life for the building.Conservationists like B. S. Malans, an INTACH activist are also agitated over the demolition plan and allege that government agencies are themselves resorting to concretization of the town, unconcerned about hill architecture.Earlier in 1995, Baljit Malik, an environmentalist had written to the then chief justice of the high court seeking his intervention to avoid any damage to the Ravenswood building after the state government approved a plan for the construction of a new five-storey (later extended to 12 storeys) building adjacent to it. The new multi-storied building, although almost complete, still awaits many clearances from municipal corporation and the Town and Country Planning Department.According to High Court Registrar M. R. Verma, the PWD that was responsible for the construction had plans to extend the building under-construction and connect it with the proposed building at the site. He, however, was not aware of the exact building plan but hinted that there was a proposal to have an open space in the complex. Other senior officials of the high court are keen to see the new building ready at the earliest so that the space requirements of the court are met.The building constructed in 1850 was designed by noted architect T. E. G. Cooper after the Raja of Faridkot bought the property. It has also remained the property of O'Meara, a well known dental surgeon. It has been the office of the finance secretary of the Government of India and has served as the circuit bench of the Delhi High Court in the sixties. For sometime, the building was used as the state circuit house of Punjab before the creation of the Himachal Pradesh High Court in 1971.
