The Supreme Court on Friday was informed that Tamil Nadu government has filed another petition challenging November 2 and September 22, 2022 Madras High Court order relating to the RSS programme to take out route marches, that is presently on hold in the entire state.
At the outset of the hearing on Friday, a bench of Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice Pankaj Mithal was informed by the lawyers appearing for a Chennai-based RSS functionary that Tamil Nadu government has filed another petition in the matter, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appearing for TN government said that was on other aspects of the matter arising from two high court orders.
As the court was told in the last hearing of the matter on March 3, the Tamil Nadu government had offered to make some proposals to find a solution of the issue, but so far none has come. Rohatgi said that he had sent the request to the State government to send the proposal, but due to some migrant related issue in the State in the last fortnight, the State government was engaged.
At this, the bench observed that the issue Rohatgi was referring to was resolved nearly ten days back.
In the absence of any proposal by the Tamil Nadu government to find some solution to the issue, and with Rohatgi telling the court that he was not advancing his arguments today, the matter was posted for hearing on March 27, 2023.
In the last hearing of the matter on March 3, the Tamil Nadu government had told the Supreme court that it was not entirely opposed to RSS conducting its programmes including route marches but same has to be with conditions and prohibition in certain sensitive areas in the wake of ban on the People Front of India (PFI) and bomb blasts.
“We have not opposed RSS route march and meetings, but it cannot be held on every street and mohalla (locality) in the state,” the state government had told the court.
Sticking to the position that RSS route march and meetings will have to be coupled with restrictions, senior advocate Rohatgi had offered to give proposal to senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani appearing for G. Subramanian – head of RSS in Chennai who had applied for police permission to hold route march in Chennai – to find a way out.
On February 10, Madras High Court directed Tamil Nadu police to grant permission to RSS to take route marches in various districts across the State on public roads.