MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the state government to submit the financial statements and copies of the annual reports of the Thanjavur Maharaja Serfoji’s Sarasvati Mahal Library, for the last five years, along with a list of sanctioned posts and existing vacancies.
A bench of justices Anita Sumanth and C Kumarappan gave the direction recently while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by B Prabhakaran seeking a direction to classify the library as a ‘model library’ under the National Mission on Libraries (NML).
Prabhakaran also wanted the union government to bring the library within the fold of digitisation, conservation, and development schemes administered by the Union Ministry of Culture. During the hearing on Tuesday, Additional Advocate General M Ajmal Khan told the court that the school education department had passed a GO last month bringing the library entirely under the state government.
The judges noted that `6 crore from the NLM funds has been deployed for the library but there are no particulars on when it was received and how it was utilised. They requested the government to furnish the documents and adjourned the case to September 16.