MADURAI: The Union government assured the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday that the reports on Phase I and Phase II of the excavations conducted at Keezhadi in Sivaganga district would be published within nine months.
The centre’s counsel made the assurance before a bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V Gangapurwala and Justice G Ilangovan when the high court was hearing a batch of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petitions alleging a delay in the report’s release.
Petitioner P Prabhakar Pandian, an advocate from Madurai, stated in his recent petition that a team led by archaeologist Ramakrishnan from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) conducted the excavations in two phases in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Nearly 5,800 artefacts were unearthed during the two phases, he added.
After this, Ramakrishnan was transferred to the Guwahati circle and the ASI also stopped excavations at Keezhadi, stating that there were no significant findings in the third phase, Pandian stated. Though the state archaeological department started excavations in 2017 and published its reports, the ASI is yet to publish Ramakrishnan’s report in the public domain.