Protect machinery in Ambedkar Bhavan: HC

Mumbai: The Bombay

high court

on Thursday suggested that machinery lying exposed to the elements at Ambedkar

Bhavan

should be covered with tarpaulin or plastic.

The HC is hearing an application to restrain the Ambedkar

brothers

, the grandsons of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Prakash, Anand and Bhimrao, from entry there and from creating third-party rights over it.

The suit was filed by trustee, Shrikant Gaware, and seven who said they are trustees, but who the Ambedkar brothers said are “only proposed trustees’’, their status not having yet been finalised by the charity commissioner. The HC had last month directed the Ambedkar brothers and trustees to maintain the status quo at the premises following a pre-dawn June 25 demolition at the historic site. Manohar Kamble, who says he is a trustee, submitted an affidavit through advocate, Santosh Sanjkar, on Thursday, where he partly accepts a recommendation by a court-appointed committee of architect Shashi Prabhu on restoration. Kamble said only the printing press section could be repaired at the trust’s cost but the multi-purpose hall needs to be demolished as a notice was served by the civic body. He said the hall belongs to the

trust

or Buddhist Samaj, not the Ambedkars. Rajendra Pai, counsel for the Ambedkar brothers, said the demolition notice was sent by the BMC for a review and hence does not survive. Prabhu, appointed by Justice S J Kathawalla, had said it could be restored. The People’s Improvement Trust, whose secretary, Gaware, moved court, said it wants to construct a 17-storey tower on the plot.

The HC posted the matter to August 30 but will first hear and decide an intervention plea filed by V S Asware and others, who said they should be heard as “trustees’’. Gaware’s counsel, Shailesh Shah, however, said they are “ex-trustees’’ and cannot intervene.

The Ambedkar brothers claim they are legal owners of part of the property on which the Buddha Bhushan printing press was constructed by Babasaheb Ambedkar, before Independence. Part of the property was constructed by a trust in the 1970s. The construction was of a hall, office of the trust, office of the political party headed by Prakash Ambedkar and the Buddhist Society of India, and the office of the Republican Sena headed by Anand Ambedkar.

Pai said Gaware’s suit for recovery of trust property was not maintainable without the charity commissioner’s permission. He disputed the claim of Gaware and others of “forcible dispossession’’, saying they were never in possession.