The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the Centre to adequately support the Gandhi Memorial Museum in Madurai by providing adequate funds which could be used to pay the salary of the employees and maintain the heritage building.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice S. Ananthi (since retired) passed the direction on the public interest litigation petition filed in 2019 by Gandhian P. Vadivelu, younger brother of freedom fighter and former Minister P. Kakkan.
Mr. Vadivelu sought a direction to the Centre and the State to allot additional funds to maintain the Gandhi Memorial Museum. Disposing of the petition, the judges said that in the absence of funds, the heritage building cannot be maintained properly.
The judges directed the Centre to support the maintenance of the heritage building and for this purpose the authorities could visit the building to take note of the accounts and required documents to ascertain the expenses required for the payment of salary and maintenance of the heritage building.
The judges said that the required funds should be provided within four months. Though the Centre had supported the Gandhi Memorial Museum by providing a corpus fund of Rs Five crore, it would not be sufficient to distribute the salary.
Apart from seeking a direction to maintain the Gandhi Memorial Museum, Mr, Vadivelu also sought pay parity for the staff of the Gandhi Memorial Museum on a par with those employed at the National Gandhi Museum in New Delhi.
