New Delhi: Delhi High Court in a hearing on Tuesday directed the Ministry of Culture to comply with its directions to produce a file that apparently contained a letter from former prime minister Manmohan Singh. Wherein, he had assured the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid that the mosque would not be declared a protected monument.
Petitioner Suhail Ahmed Khan had demanded that the mosque should be declared a protected monument. His advocate Devinder Pal Singh said the file appeared to have gone “untraceable”. “How can a file on such an important issue, where the then PM had something to write, is lost,” Singh asked.
Khan had filed an application seeking the production of the file around fifteen days back. The HC on August 23, 2017, had summoned the entire file pertaining to Jama Masjid. The court wanted to know the reason given by the UPA government for not declaring the mosque a protected monument.
ET had reported in April 2015 that the Archaeological Survey of India had produced Manmohan Singh’s 2004 letter to the imam, Syed Ahmed Bukhari. The court, on February 27, gave a week’s time to the ministry to “disclose the position of the monument and status of the file”.