Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Tamil Nadu, offered to give a proposal to Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for the RSS, to find a way out.
RSS members at a gathering. (Supplied)
The Tamil Nadu government on Friday, 3 March, told the Supreme Court that it is not entirely opposed to the RSS conducting its programmes, including route marches, but it does have some conditions and prohibitions in certain sensitive areas in the wake of the ban on the People Front of India (PFI) and bomb blasts.
“We have not opposed the RSS route march and meetings, but it cannot be on every street and mohalla (locality) in the state,” the counsel for Tamil Nadu told the bench — comprising of Justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal.
Sticking to its position that the RSS route march and meetings will have to be coupled with restrictions, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Tamil Nadu, offered to give a proposal to senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for RSS functionary G Subramanian, to find a way out.
Subramanian had applied for police permission to hold a route march in Chennai.
On Rohatgi’s suggestion that they will give a proposal to resolve the issue and seeking time for the same, the court posted the matter for further consideration on 17 March.
Assailing the high court’s 19 February order that permitted the RSS to take out its route march and other assemblies, Rohatgi told the court that maintaining law and order was the state government’s responsibility and the high court cannot pass a carte blanche order permitting the RSS to carry out their programmes all over the state.
He suggested that the RSS can have its gatherings in compounded areas or even a stadium.
Rohatgi said that in matters of such nature, the court can look into entire material being relied upon by the state in imposing restrictions and even prohibiting programmes in certain areas. We gave all the intelligence reports in a sealed cover to the court, Rohatgi said.
In the course of the hearing, Justice Ramasubramanian observed, “There are two languages. One is the language of democracy and the other is the language of power. Which language you speak depends on where you are.”
Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for RSS functionary G Subramanian, said that while the state government is preventing the RSS from catting out its programmes in public places, the ruling party‘s — Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam — women wing was permitted to publicly agitate against Hindi.
Jethmalani told the court that the RSS was to carry out its programmes at 50 places and permission had been declined for 41 of these places and six more were saddled with restrictions.
As the court adjourned the matter for hearing on 17 March, Jethmalani told the court that nothing will happen before Holi.
Jethmalani later said that the RSS programme was for three days — 3 to 5 March — and since the state police approached the Supreme Court in the meantime, everything is on the hold now.
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