The Centre said on Tuesday it would make all efforts to bring back the Kohinoor diamond from the United Kingdom in an “amicable manner” — a stand that seems to be at odds with the Solicitor General’s submissions to the Supreme Court on Monday.
The Union government’s senior legal officer had contended in the apex court that the > diamond had been given to the British government as voluntary compensation for the Anglo-Sikh wars by heirs of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
In a strongly worded statement issued on Tuesday night, the Culture Ministry said the Solicitor General’s submissions were consistent with the stand taken by earlier governments going as far back as 1956 during the tenure of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Claiming that the media coverage on the government’s stance about Kohinoor was “not based on facts”, the government said the factual position is that the matter is sub judice and a public interest litigation plea filed in the Supreme Court is yet to be admitted.
The government said the Solicitor General informed the Supreme Court about the history of the diamond and gave an oral statement on the basis of the existing references made available by the ASI.
On Tuesday, the Centre stressed that it has not yet conveyed its views to the court, which it said had granted six weeks to the Solicitor General to make a submission.
