New Delhi: Despite being monitored by Delhi High Court and occasionally even by Supreme Court, work on a survey to weed out encroachers and preserve the historic Tughlaqabad Fort appears to be going around in circles.HC was surprised to learn on Tuesday that even as the apex court in April stopped a move to outsource the survey work to a private entity and instead roped in IIT-Delhi, the institute plans to issue a tender for the work, indicating it may engage a private player.The counsel for Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) told a bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia that IIT doesn’t appear to have in-house expertise for such work.“Please inform Supreme Court that even IIT is floating a tender. Otherwise, such a move may run contrary to the SC order,” the bench advised ASI, as it noted that the apex court had frowned upon outsourcing of the project.HC, which last year appointed a high-powered panel to complete the work of surveying the fort, was reviewing the progress in the matter on Tuesday.It was the first hearing since Supreme Court this April took serious exception to the committee outsourcing the survey work of identifying encroachments to a private firm and stayed the move.An SC bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and N K Singh had then questioned ASI why it couldn’t send its own officials to carry out the survey, wondering “what the department was doing” and said roping in a private agency “reeks of bureaucratic red-tapism”.To streamline the survey work, SC had then modified the HC order and handed over the project to IIT-Delhi and School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), further directing the committee members and police to coordinate with these institutes.SC had said that departmental heads can’t “abdicate their responsibility and outsource matters which can be totally done in-house” while requesting the directors of IIT-Delhi and SPA to constitute a team and “work in tandem with the committee”.Last Oct, HC described Tughlaqabad Fort as a monument of national importance that must remain free of encroachment to preserve its historical heritage. It set up a high-level committee with representatives from the Union housing and urban affairs ministry, the urban development department, MCD, police, state govt, ASI and DDA to take steps to get the survey conducted and devise a joint policy decision not only for removal of encroachment, but also to rehabilitate those who may be displaced.Reviewing its progress this March, HC recorded that the committee zeroed in on a private agency to carry out the survey and fixed a timeline for a work order to be issued in 10 days — a direction that was modified by SC.With IIT-Delhi, too, signalling it may outsource the survey work, HC directed ASI to apprise SC, which is monitoring the conservation status of 173 notified heritage sites in Delhi where it has also appointed an amicus.
