Persons Who Have Some Interest On Road Margin Cannot Decide Who Passes Through Road: Madras HC Permits RSS Route March On Road Alongside Mosque, Rejects 'Fanciful Reasons' Cited By State
The Madras High Court has set aside the refusal of permission by the Tamil Nadu Police for Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) route marches at different locations across the state. The Court warned the Tamil Nadu Police against refusing such permission in future "inventing novel and fanciful reasons".
The Bench of Justice G Jayachandran held as untenable the refusal of permission by the Police for one of the route marches citing the existence of a Mosque along the route. "This Court had repeatedly held that presence of other religious institutions or building or organisations with different ideology cannot be a bar for conducting Route March. Public road is always a public road. Persons who have some interest on the road margin cannot decide whom to pass through the public road", the Court held.
Senior Advocates N.L.Rajah, G.Karthikeyan and G.Rajagopalan and Advocate R.C.Paul Kanagaraj appeared for Petitioners while Government Advocate K.M.D.Muhilan appeared for the State in all cases.
Last week, the Court had passed an interim order in the matter directing the police to consider applications for permission for the Route Marches based on last year’s guidelines issued by the Court.
The Court observed in the present order that "the spirit of the Judgment and the observations of this Court that the said guidelines to be followed in future is floated very next year and that is the reason these batch of writ petitions, now before this Court".
On September 30, the State informed the Court that out of 58 applications, 42 applications were considered and permission granted. The Court then directed the State to verify whether the permission granted "bristles with colourable exercise of power" and why the remaining 16 applications had not been considered. The Court was then informed that out of the remaining 16 applications, 10 applications were allowed and 6 applications were rejected and the reasons had been stated in the order of rejection.
The Court then went into the reasons cited for each of the said rejections of permission.
On the State's failure to comply with the earlier guidelines, the Court observed, "This Court as well as the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the previous round of litigation issued directions and expressed belief that guidelines issued be followed scrupulously by the police as well as the organizers and there should not be any need for the organisers to approach the Court in future. However, it is proved to be an illusion. This reminds the tale of “Vedha and Vikram”. "
Last year, addressing the issue of the repeated denial of permission to the RSS to conduct route marches despite judicial orders, the Supreme Court had directed the State and Tamil Nadu Police to present a proposal before the High Court outlining the measures they intend to take to ensure that the RSS is granted permission to conduct route marches in the future without necessitating court's intervention.
Cause Title: K.Sethuraj v. The State of Tamil Nadu
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