Private manuscripts ‘national property’, all set to go public

Aditi Tandon

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New Delhi, April 2

A treasure trove of privately held manuscripts is all set to go public with the Central Information Commission, in a path-breaking order, ruling that manuscripts, whether owned by the government or private bodies, were a “national property”.

30,000 on website

• National Manuscript Mission (NMM) has digitised 3 lakh manuscripts
• 30,000 of these private manuscripts are on the NMM website
• CIC tells NMM to put all digitised manuscripts on its website

Central Information Commissioner Uday Mahurkar, disposing of an appeal by a Sanskrit scholar who was refused information by the National Manuscript Mission (NMM) on private manuscripts it had digitised, said the information sought by the appellant was in larger public interest. “These manuscripts, though belonging to private institutes, were digitised by the NMM at the expense of the public exchequer. The NMM is directed to put in public domain all the 3 lakh manuscripts it has digitised in a year,” Mahurkar said. So far, only 30,000 manuscripts have been put on the NMM’s website. The NMM argued that digitised manuscripts of private bodies were protected by a contractual agreement between two parties. The decision to place the manuscripts on the website had been taken after approval from private bodies, it said. The NMM said it was trying to persuade private institutes to let it share more manuscripts in public domain. Though the NMM maintained that placing all privately owned manuscripts in public domain could hurt the ongoing digitisation project, the CIC rejected the argument. It noted that the digitisation project was meant to bring centuries-old manuscripts to everyone’s knowledge.