Although the Maharashtra government has published wonderful volumes of handwritten literature of several social reformers, it has failed to take efforts to make the public aware of it, observed the Bombay High Court on Thursday.
A division bench of Justices PB Varale and Kishore Sant also remarked the government will have to change its mindset with changing times and spread awareness about the writings of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and other social reformers.
The HC observed while hearing a suo moto (on its own) petition which took cognizance of a media report highlighting that the government had stalled the project of publishing the literature of Ambedkar with an estimated cost of Rs 5.45 crore.
The judges said that the government has to publicise its efforts so that people come to the bookshops to buy these volumes since everything is now available at people’s doorsteps.
“Volumes (of writings) of so many social reformers are published by the Maharashtra government but how many people are aware of this? These volumes have been published decades ago and some of them are the most wonderful ones. Readers have to be brought to the bookshop,” Justice Varale said.
“You (state government) have to change your mindset according to the changing times. Earlier, people used to go to bookshops but now it is all available at your doorstep. Publishers have to bring people to the shops,” added Justice Varale.
The court said that government will have to take “concrete and positive efforts” as many people may be unaware of the existence of government bookshops.
Expressing displeasure over the government affidavit, the court said that it did not contain the necessary details. The affidavit did not provide the details regarding the formation of the committee, which was to be formed to address this issue and the names of the committee members neither did it have details on whether any meeting had been held by the committee and remuneration of the members.
The HC has asked government pleader Poornima Kantharia to file an additional affidavit within two weeks noting that it did not expect the government to handle such matters casually.
Kantharia pointed out to the court that the government is distributing the writings of Ambedkar to colleges and other institutions.
However, the court said that the committee should come and make a statement that the books were reaching the readers.
