Hold consignment, Admn to Customs

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 10

The Chandigarh Administration on Tuesday wrote to the central Customs authorities in Delhi to hold the consignment of 14 heritage chairs believed to be part of Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier’s creations for the city.

In a letter to the central Customs, Urban Planning officials of the UT said Panjab University, Chandigarh, had owned up one of the chairs in the consignment coded PUL (Punjab University Library) as its own and was in the process of determining the belonging of other pieces of furniture marked PBS.

The UT Administration has requested the customs to keep the cache of furniture meant for exports at its Tuglakabad storehouse in Delhi till the final confirmation on the origin of the furniture is received.

Meanwhile, the UT Administration is also likely to explore the possibility of filing an FIR in the matter and hold a meeting in this respect.

The Tribune has learnt that the UT chief architect, who is also the chairman of the Chandigarh Heritage Protection Cell, is likely to hold a meeting to discuss the issue on Wednesday.

Customs, it is learnt, has conveyed to the UT that they won’t be able to hold the suspect consignment for long in the absence of a formal police complaint or an FIR by either the Chandigarh Administration or the PU.

The PU on its part has asked all departments to see if the furniture in the consignment matches the descriptions of chairs at the varsity.

Another chair auctioned in Zurich for Rs 4.85 lakh

Meanwhile, UT Heritage Protection Cell member Ajay Jagga on Tuesday wrote to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj flagging a June 28 auction of a heritage chair Le Corbusier had designed for the Chandigarh High Court. The single teak and brown leather advocate’s chair went off at Koller auction house in Zurich for 7,000 Swiss francs (Rs 4.85 lakh).

Jagga has sought an enquiry into the auction and asked how the heritage chair from Chandigarh landed in Zurich. He rued why India was not a signatory to the UN Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, an international law that protects artistic and archaeological assets.

Jagga further quoted a July 21 2004 Resolution on Protection Against Trafficking in Cultural Property of the Economic and Social Council which says “organised criminal groups are involved in trafficking in stolen cultural property and that the international trade in looted, stolen or smuggled cultural property is estimated at several billion US dollars per year.”