Inventory must: Magisterial report

CHANDIGARH: In the much-delayed heritage theft magisterial probe report submitted on late Thursday evening, SDM (east) Abhishek Dev has stressed on the immediate need to prepare an authenticated official inventory of all heritage articles - paintings, drawings, building maps and furniture items - by a team of architects.
Dev has recommended the name of former professor of Chandigarh College of Architecture Kiran Joshi, as one of the two main people to work on the preparation of the heritage articles’ inventory.Another person is Sumit Kaur, the sitting UT chief architect.
Kiran Joshi refused to comment on the recommendation of her name as one of the heritage inventory makers by the investigating official in the report. “I am not yet aware of the contents of the magistrate?s report,” she said.
The magisterial inquiry was ordered by the UT administration nearly two months back to get the real picture behind the frequent disappearances of heritage items from the city, which are being auctioned for millions of rupees at the international auction-houses in France, England and USA. In February this year, another heritage furniture articles’ auction was conducted by a Paris-based auction-house, Artcurial, fetching lakhs of rupees.
The UT had been facing strong criticism for not being able to preserve and stop the heritage items from being taken out of the city.
Inquiries by TOI divulged that in his report, the SDM (east) has suggested to find immediate administrative ways to make plans to preserve all existing heritage material at any cost.
He has suggested to appoint the senior and efficient officials from the UT architect department to prepare the preservation programmes of the heritage material by collecting them from all available sources and assemble them at a single platform.
It has also been learnt that the probing magistrate, in his mighty heritage theft report, has tried to fix the blame of disappearance of heritage articles on a number of former Chandigarh officials and city people. He has also sought to initiate another inquiry against some former officials of UT architect department including the former chief architects.