There is no policy with the Government to certify genuineness of precious artifacts stored in museums across the country. This chilling revelation by the Ministry of Culture in the Supreme Court has added to concerns about a possible siphoning of valuable artifacts from Central Museums in the international market at a premium price.
The admission came as part of a response filed by the Centre over the mysterious disappearance of a conservation officer at Kolkata’s Indian Museum Sunil Kumar Upadhyay, who blew the lid off several irregularities at the museum. His disclosures even led to unearthing of scams at the Indian Museum, a concern shared by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which detected faulty CCTVs, no security policy to man museums and lack of policy governing preservation and upkeep of artifacts.
Seeking to plug several of these loopholes, the Ministry of Culture in its response told a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Pinaki Chandra Ghose that a uniform guideline to secure and preserve artifacts was still underway although there existed no method to assess genuineness of the goods stored in museums.
The affidavit presented by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh said, “At present, there is no uniform policy for evaluation of the genuineness of the art objects acquired or possessed by the Museums under the Ministry of Culture.” All museums under the Central Government have been asked to undertake physical verification of artifacts using experts as no guidelines exist to assess genuineness of the articles.
The petitioner represented by advocate Anirudh Sharma sought time to file response to the affidavit. As regards the missing officer, having constituted a special investigation team headed by a senior IPS officer Damayanti Sen, the Court sought a progress report on the probe within four weeks.
The Centre further informed the Court that keeping in view the security of artifacts currently manned by private security agencies, a decision was taken to extend CISF cover to Indian Museum and Victoria Memorial Hall Museum. Although posts have been sanctioned, deployment has delayed as West Bengal authorities are yet to allot land to house barracks for CISF personnel near the museum.