MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has asked the Tamil Nadu government to send necessary proposals to the union government for conducting ocean research on Kumari Kandam, the landscape believed to have submerged in the Indian Ocean.
A bench of Justices G Jayachandran and K K Ramakrishnan issued the direction while disposing of a PIL seeking an underwater archaeological excavation to trace the existence of Kumari Kandam.
The petitioner, V Narayanamoorthy of Dindigul, submitted that Tamil classical literature contains references to Kumari Kandam — said to lie south of Kanniyakumari and extend towards Australia in the east and Madagascar in the south.
When the case was heard recently, the government counsel told the court that the state would require the centre’s permission to conduct a research in the ocean. But the counsel representing the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) informed that the union government has not received any such proposal from the state so far. He also added that if a proposal is received, it would be considered and necessary assistance would be provided.