Are museums covered under disaster management law, HC asks Centre

The Delhi High Court Friday sought to know whether museums, which are of cultural importance, are covered under the disaster management law.

The court's query came while hearing a plea relating to disaster management plan for National Museum in Delhi.

A bench of Justice G S Sistani and Jyoti Singh sought to know from the counsel for the Centre and the National Museum whether museums come under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

The court was hearing a plea by NGO Global Rescue Foundation seeking direction to the Ministry of Culture and the National Museum to stay the process or tender or allocation of work of preparation of disaster management plan in favour of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

The petition, filed through advocate Kabir S Ghosh, claimed that the action of National Museum authorities in selecting INTACH for preparing the disaster management plan was an illegal, malafide and biased action.

It alleged that the selection was made without adopting or formulating any selection criteria and without issuing any advertisement.

The NGO said it was engaged in the field of disaster management and has worked with many schools, colleges, banks, hotels, universities, cinema halls and hospitals.

Central government standing counsel Rajesh Gogna highlighted the fact that at present, the National Museum is functioning without any guidelines and provisions for disaster management plan.

The plea sought direction to call for the entire file pertaining to the preparation of national disaster plan of the National Museum.

It said that in view of the importance of museums as being repositories of heritage, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in 2017 came up with dedicated guidelines on the issue of museum safety, thereby providing a robust framework for the protection of such monuments.

The plea added that in March this year, the NGO wrote to the museum authorities for its consultancy services for the formulation of disaster management plan.

In May, it was informed that some other agency has already been awarded the work of national disaster plan.

The National Museum, in its response, said a well prepared disaster management plan is essential to prevent permanent loss of these national treasures due to disasters like fire, flood and earthquake and other hazards including moisture, heat and pest attacks.

The reply claimed that INTACH has requisite expertise in various aspects of the cultural heritage encompassing architectural, natural and material heritage.

It said the National Museum has followed due process to award the work to INTACH after considering that this is the only agency which has requisite institutional strength and capability to undertake the very specialised work of preparation of disaster management plan for a large museum like the National Museum.