Since 2009, publicly-owned modernist furniture designed by Pierre Jeanneret — the architect behind Chandigarh's entire built heritage — has...

Since 2009, publicly-owned modernist furniture designed by Pierre Jeanneret — the architect behind Chandigarh's entire built heritage — has been flowing from Panjab University, PGIMER, and government offices into international auction houses. The chairs arrive complete with their original government inventory tags, making their provenance unmistakably legible to every buyer in Paris and Brussels. Heritage activist Ajay Jagga warned the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, and the Indian Ambassador 48 hours before a Brussels auction on June 18 — seven chairs sold for ₹1.6 crore. He sent the identical warning for the June 25 Paris auction. This time, Chandigarh Police registered two FIRs — the first ever criminal cases in 17 years of documented, internationally publicised theft. The Archaeological Survey of India has repeatedly clarified that the furniture does not qualify as an antiquity under the 1972 Act, which means no authority has jurisdiction, and every available bureaucratic pathway has been used to explain why action is not possible.