The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has said that it will hold its route march in Tamil Nadu on 16 April, after getting the go-ahead from the Supreme Court of India. Yesterday the Sangh was granted permission by the state police to conduct its route march on April 16 in around 45 places in the state. The police were forced to grant the permission after the Tamil Nadu government’s appeal against a Madras High Court decision permitting RSS to organize the march was rejected by the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
RSS got the police permission after it met DGP C. Sylendra Babu along with a copy of the Supreme Court order. A senior police officer, “We have granted permission to them as per the order of the Supreme Court with relevant terms and conditions. We will ensure necessary police bandobust.” The DGP asked the district cadres of RSS to approach the District Superintendent of Police and work out routes and other formalities for conducting the march on April 16.
“The DGP of Tamil Nadu has granted permission to RSS to conduct route march in 45 places all over Tamil Nadu and has requested the district cadres to approach the concerned District Commissioners of Police and Superintendent of Police and work out route and other formalities for conducting march on April 16, 2023,” an official statement released by RSS Tamil Nadu read.
The RSS stated in the release that route march is a routine RSS practice across the country and every state except Tamil Nadu has allowed such route marches in the past. It said that the RSS had approached High Court to attain permission to conduct such marches in the past.
“In 2020, 2021 route marches were not conducted due to Covid-19 pandemic and in 2022 the state police denied permission to conduct marches at 50 places across the state. Following this RSS approached to the Madras High Court who on September 22, 2022 directed the state police to grant permission subject to certain conditions,” the statement read.
It further added that though the Court had directed to issue permission, the state government was reluctant to give permission. “Political parties such as Communists, VCK, Congress vehemently opposed the grant of permission. In fact VCK filed an appeal before the two judge bench against the order and though the same was dismissed. The state government also filed 50 review petitions which were also dismissed by single judge.”
RSS Tamil Nadu then filed 50 contempt petitions before the Single judge, during the hearing of which the state filed a status report stating that there have been petrol bomb attacks on the RSS and the BJP cadres throughout Tamil Nadu. The single judge bench granted the permission to conduct route marches in only three places named Cuddalore, Perambalur, Kallakurichi. The same were conducted on November 6 last year.
However, aggrieved by the Single judge order, the RSS approached the division bench which later set aside the order passed by the single judge. The state government then filed an appeal against the order in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rejected the state government’s plea on Tuesday, allowing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to stage a route march in Tamil Nadu.
The RSS march organizers stated before the Supreme Court of India that Article 19(1)(b) of the Indian Constitution guarantees the basic right to peaceful assembly, and that their march could not be postponed because of potential violence by PFI as it is the state’s responsibility to provide appropriate security.
On the other side, the state argued that “reasonable restrictions” under Article 19(3) were necessary for the preservation of the nation’s integrity, sovereignty, or public order. The state mentioned instances where PFI members threw petrol bombs at an RSS march along a same route in Karnataka’s Haveri district in October.
A bench of justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal while referring the previous history of attacks by PFI on similar rallies conducted by RSS, said, “The chart provided by the state government shows that the members of the respondent organisation were the victims in many of those cases and that they were not the perpetrators. Therefore, it is not possible for us to find fault with the order passed by the learned Judge either in the main writ petitions or in the review applications. Hence, all the special leave petitions are liable to be dismissed.”
The RSS is all set to hold the route march at 45 places across the state including Arani, Ambore, Vellore, Chennai, Hosur, Attur, Salem, Karur, Palani, Madurai, Tiruchi, Pattukottai and Palladam on April 16.
