PATNA: Taking cognizance of a PIL filed against the plight of Madhubani painting artists in Bihar, having deprived of their due royalties accruing to the geographical indication (GI) tags assigned to such paintings in 2005 itself, Patna high court on Monday directed the secretary of state's youth, art and culture department to appear before it on March 14.
A division bench of acting chief justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh and Justice Madhuresh Prasad, while hearing a PIL filed by 'Atmabodh', a non-profitable organisation, also asked the state government as what steps have been taken to identify and preserve the intellectual property rights of artists of Madhubani paintings which had been assigned GI tags 17 years back.
Petitioner's counsel Maurya Vijay Chandra stated that in order to recognize the uniqueness of Madhubani painting identified with its geographical origin in Bihar, GI tag was given to such paintings in 2005. However, such tags remained absent from Madhubani paintings depriving the original artists from their rights to patent and receive royalties on resale of any paintings above Rs 10,000 for each original work. Consequently, the trade of Madhubani paintings has been dominated by the middlemen who are engrossed in making money, but contribute nothing to preserve the "benchmark of the traditional painting art" of Bihar which has a worldwide reputation. "There is a lack of regular inspection of GI rights of original artists,” the court said.
Both the judges further directed the art and culture secretary to examine and ascertain about the GI signs given to the Madhubani paintings in Patna airport's lounge on Tuesday when this case will be heard further at 2:15 pm.
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