NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) and Delhi government on a petition seeking conservation and protection of the 500-year-old octagonal domed tomb, Gumti of Shaikh Ali, located next to the Defence Colony market.
The ancient edifice of the Lodi period (1451-1526) has been occupied by local residents’ welfare association’s (RWA) since the 1960s and is out of bounds to the general public.
The bench comprising justices L Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta also issued notice to the Defence Colony Welfare Association (DCWA) after hearing the petition filed by Rajeev Suri, Defence Colony a resident.
Suri moved the apex court against the Delhi High Court’s dismissal of his plea in February this year after the ASI contended that the Gumti has been altered by residents over a period of time and has lost its originality.
HS Bedi, general secretary, DCWA, said that the association didn’t have information about the notice and will file its response as intimation comes.
However, he said that the Gumti has no historical significance as no grave exists in it.
In Zafar Hasan’s 1916 list of Delhi’s monuments, the Gumti is described as a tomb with two unknown, ruined graves.
“The ASI submitted in the high court that the gumti couldn’t be taken over as tomb or historical structure. The DCWA is occupying and running its office since 1960s,” he said.
“The historicity of the Gumti must be protected at the earliest. The civic authority- South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has unabashedly been attempting to foist multilevel car parking and shopping plaza on the open land around the building,” Rajeev Suri claimed.