Supreme Court rejects TN govt's appeal against allowing RSS route marches in the state

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the Stalin led-Tamil Nadu's appeal against the Madras high court order allowing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) route marches in the state.

A bench of justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal upheld the Madras High Court order which allowed the RSS route march in the state.

Dismissing the appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government against the Madras HC order, the top court said, "Therefore, it is not possible for us to find fault with the order passed by the Judge either in the main writ petitions or in the review applications."

"Hence all the special leave petitions are liable to be dismissed," the top court said.

The top court has observed that the main objection raised by the State before the High Court was that after the imposition of a ban order on another organization, law and order problems cropped up in certain places and that the same led to several cases being registered.

The details of those cases are actually furnished in the memorandum of grounds of special leave petition.

"But the Chart provided by the State Government shows that the members of the respondent organization were the victims in many of those cases and that they were not the perpetrators," the top court said.

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Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appeared for the petitioners Tamil Nadu, in all the special leave petitions and Senior Advocates Mahesh Jethmalani and Menaka Guruswamy appeared for the respondent RSS.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu Government told the Supreme Court that they are not totally against the RSS route march but can't permit it in sensitive locations.

The court was hearing the Tamil Nadu government's appeal against the Madras High Court order permitting RSS for its route march in the state.

On February 10, Madras High Court directed Tamil Nadu police to grant permission to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to take route marches in various districts across the State on public roads.

Recently the Tamil Nadu Government has challenged two orders of the Madras High Court dated September 22, 2022, and November 2, 2022.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu Government had also said that they will have a dialogue with the RSS on proposed routes for the march as they are not totally opposed to it.

The state government had apprised the court that the government denied holding route marches in the sensitive areas, which have faced PFI incidents and have border areas with disturbances.

The lawyer said, "The government had had some intelligence reports."

The lawyer for Tamil Nadu Government had stressed that they are not fully opposed to the procession but to the manner in which it is proposed to be done.

"They are not able to control terrorist organizations and that is why they want to ban the route march," the lawyer said.

Tamil Nadu Government has moved the top court against the Madras High Court order permitting the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to take out its route march in Tamil Nadu on rescheduled dates.

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