Supreme Court initiates suo motu case on proposed relocation of 135-year-old Central Secretariat Library

The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of concerns surrounding the proposed relocation of the 135-year-old Central Secretariat Library (CSL) from Shastri Bhawan in New Delhi, which is slated for demolition as part of the Central Vista redevelopment project.

The matter is listed for hearing on October 5 before a bench of Justices PV Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva.

CSL, which functions under the Union Ministry of Culture, was established as the Imperial Secretariat Library in Calcutta in 1891.

According to its website, the CSL was moved to Delhi after the capital was shifted in 1911 and has been housed at Shastri Bhawan since 1969. It is the second-largest Central government library after the National Library in Kolkata.

The library currently occupies around 5,500 square metres across four floors and has a collection of more than 8.5 lakh volumes, including rare books, government publications, official records and gazetteers.

The Culture Ministry initially sought approximately 5,466 square metres for the library in the redeveloped Central Secretariat.

Concerns over its future arose after the Directorate of Estates under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) proposed allotting two rooms, measuring around 300 square metres at Kartavya Bhawan-2, for the library.

The Culture Ministry subsequently informed MoHUA in February that the proposed space was inadequate to house the library's complete collection and facilities and that complete relocation to the allotted space was not feasible.