Close on the heels of the Navy auctioning its decommissioned aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, the Supreme Court is expected to hear on Thursday a plea filed by a city-based “Save Vikrant Movement’ (SVM) campaigners seeking the classification of the erstwhile warship as as ‘Antiquity’.
A day after information tricked out of the Indian Navy sources here that the de-commissioned INS Vikrant had been sold to Messrs IB Commercial Pvt ltd for Rs 60 crore at an auction held last week, SVM Convener Kiran Paingankar said that while the news of the bid being finalised was “…we have already moved the Supreme Court in the issue and it has already been put up on the board and may come up on Thursday.
“We shall be requesting the apex court to allow any other state government or port trust to come forward and take it over since Maharashtra Government is not willing to save it and give her the status of ‘Antiquity’ under the Antiquity and Art Treasure Act, 1972,” Paingainkar said.
“Our key contention has always been that the ship can easily classified as ‘ Antiquity’. After all she is already 70 years old and she can be converted into a National Museum for educational and defence training purposes.
“If this is done then tourism and cultural department of any state in the peninsula or the Centre will benefit from this move. Since the Maharashtra government which had proclaimed that it would take care of the ship by converting it into a permanent museum and then quietly washed off its hands then Indian government under the Antiquity Act can easily provide funds for her up-keep,” he said. In January, the Indian Navy told the Bombay High Court that the long-INS Vikrant “ could not be considered safe in its present condition” and the decision to scrap the ship and the maritime museum on board was taken, after the Maharashtra Government failed to convert it in to the museum.