Speed Post News Network
Patna : Patna High Court on March 5, 2020, fixed March 17, 2020, as the next date of hearing in the case of proposed demolition of the historic district Collectorate here.
The matter came up for hearing on March 5 in the court of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol who had heard the case on January 31, 2020. According to Sanket Sinha, the lawyer of INTACH, the petitioner in the case, the court has fixed the next date of hearing on March 17.
Bihar government had in 2016 proposed to demolish the old Patna Collectorate for a new high-rise complex triggering protest and appeals from different quarters in India and abroad. Subsequently, the Indian National Trust for Art and Culture (INTACH) had last year filed two petitions in Patna High Court challenging the demolition proposal and seeking constitution of a Bihar heritage commission.
After hearing the two PILs, the Patna High Court had in September 2019 stayed the proposed demolition of the government complex restraining the state authorities from causing any harm to the collectorate building until further orders. Historians, urban planners, conservation architects and other heritage experts have been appealing to the Nitish Kumar-led government to not dismantle the collectorate saying it will set a very bad precedent.
Patna Collectorate complex, parts of which are over 250 years old, is located on the banks of river Ganga. One of the last surviving signatures of Dutch architecture in the Bihar capital, its fate hangs in the balance.