Chennai, Feb 11 (IANS)
The Tamil Nadu unit of the Rashtreeya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will soon be providing three suitable dates to conduct ‘Route March’ in the state after Madras High Court directed the state police to allow permission for the organisation to conduct the march. The Madras High court division bench comprising of Justices R Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq told the appellants to approach state authorities with three different dates of their choice for holding the route march and directed the authorities to grant permission for holding the march on one of these dates.
A senior functionary of the Tamil Nadu unit of the RSS while speaking to IANS said, “We will be holding a meeting soon to finalise three dates as necessitated by the Madras High Court regarding the conduct of the route march. Senior functionaries of the organisation will sit and finalise this and let you know on the dates.”
It may be noted that the Tamil Nadu government had not given permission to the RSS route marches to be held during the Vijayadashami day celebrations. The Police had cited law and order situation and did not grant permission to the route march. The police stated that after the ban of the Islamist organisation, Popular Front of India (PFI), the route march could cause some communal disturbances affecting law and order situation and hence the march could not be allowed.
A single bench of the Madras High court had allowed permission to the RSS to conduct the march but within compound walls and the organisation had filed an appeal against this before the division bench.
The court in its order of Friday, February 10th, said, “ The state’s approach towards citizen’s rights can never be adversarial in a welfare state and it must be considered for granting permission for peaceful rallies, protests, meetings or processions so as to maintain a healthy democracy.”
The division bench had set aside the single judge bench order of November 4, 2022, restricting the route marches within the compound premises.
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