Provide basic facilities at Dr.Ambedkar Manimandapam, MHC directs State
The petitioners claim themselves as publishers and having rare books of Ambedkar which are not available in the open market.
Madras High Court
CHENNAI: The Madras High Court directed the State to provide basic amenities and facilities to the visitors attending the birth anniversary of Dr.Ambedkar at his Manimandapam in Chennai.
Justice SM Subramaniam refused to grant permission to two individuals seeking to allow them to display and sell literature of Ambedkar within the premises of the manimandapam at Raja Annamalai Puram.
If the Court allowed such requests it would lead to chaos where several other publishers would knock the doors of the State to permit them also, which eventually became a problem for the government.
An advocate K Senthamizh Selvi representing Voice of Buddha publications and Niranjan Vijayan representing Inclusive Dhamma publications moved petitions in MHC seeking to display and sell the literature of Ambedkar published by them, on April 14 (the birth anniversary of Ambedkar) at his Manimandapam.
The petitioners claim themselves as publishers and having rare books of Ambedkar which are not available in the open market.
Hence, they sought to direct the State to allocate a separate space in the manimandapam to display and sell the literature of Ambedkar on his birth anniversary.
Further, the petitioners also submitted that the manimandapam lacks basic amenities and facilities including water and toilet, which cause huge inconvenience to the general public who visits the manimandapam on Ambedkar's anniversary.
Additional Advocate General (AAG) J Ravindran objected to the petitions and submitted that all the basic amenities are available in the manimandapam.
The Department of Information and Public Relations submitted an affidavit containing the facilities made available during the birth anniversary of Ambedkar at the Manimandapam.
The AAG also objected to allotting separate space for the petitioners to display their books since the area of Manimandapam is small and it would be a disturbance to the public.
Further, he also submitted that there are thousands of books about Ambedkar in the library established within the Manimandapam.
After the submission, the judge dismissed the petition and directed the State to ensure all the basic facilities and amenities including toilet and water were available in the manimandapam on April 14.
Further, the judge granted liberty to the petitioners to represent themselves before the government to keep their books in the public libraries including Anna Centenary Library, Chennai.
