According to Dilbhagh Singh, the Punjab Police are encroaching on the monument, which has to be turned over to the ASI as soon as possible.
Dilbhagh Singh, a social activist, has sent a letter to the secretary of the Punjab Department of Home Affairs and Justice, the director general of the Punjab Police, and the director general of the Punjab Police Academy in Phillaur, Jalandhar, requesting that the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Fort, also known as the Phillaur Fort, be evacuated. The Punjab Police Academy is presently housed inside the fort.
If his submission is not addressed within three months of the letter, Dilbhagh further threatened to file a similar petition with the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
According to Dilbhagh, who is headquartered in Jalandhar, the Punjab citizens have requested that the Punjab Police leave the area, but this has not occurred yet. When deciding on his civil writ petition on August 25, 2008, former Chief Justice of India TS Thakur and Justice Surya Kant of the Punjab and Haryana High Court said, “It goes without saying that if the Government of India eventually declares the fort at Phillaur as a monument of national importance, all consequences otherwise flowing from such declaration would follow.” He then provided details about the case.
I was compelled to file a contempt of court petition (COCP) against the Union government because the Government of India delayed the procedure for designating Ranjit Singh Fort as a national monument. After that, the Union government published a final notification, which Justice Hemant Gupta of the Punjab and Haryana High Court disposed of. He stated in an order in September 2010 that the final notification designating the fort as a monument of national importance had been published on September 7, 2010, in the letter he referenced earlier.
Nevertheless, according to Dilbhagh, the Punjab Police did not depart the premises after the proclamation. According to him, legal action would be pursued, and throughout the last 12 years, the Punjab Police has consistently denied the Archeological Survey of India’s (ASI) demands to give over the fort for conservation work. According to him, the fort has not been accessible to visitors or the general public owing to encroachments.
The notice issued in the official gazette said that the Central government, according to sub-section (8) of Section 4 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, has declared the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Fort at Phillaur to be of national significance.