Guwahati: The Central government informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that the Ministry of Culture is now working to designate “Ram Setu” as a national historic monument.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy was given permission to submit a representation to the Ministry on this matter by a bench consisting of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala. Swamy was asking the government to direct the declaration of “Ram Setu” as a national monument.
The Ministry will notify the court of the Centre’s decision, the top court stated.
The Supreme Court’s decision was reached after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the bench that the Ministry of Culture is now carrying through the procedure.
He added Swamy could send more messages if he wanted to.
When the CJI said that Swamy can meet the concerned person, he said, “I do not want to meet anybody if they do not want to. We are in the same party, it was there in our manifesto. Let them decide in six weeks or four weeks…”
The bench then rejected the argument and freed Swamy to appeal the Ministry’s judgement to the highest court if he so desired.
According to Swamy, the lawsuit has been ongoing for eight years but the government has not been able to respond to the request.
In his plea, Swamy had urged the apex court to pass an order and direct the “Union of India along with National Monuments Authority (NMA) to declare Ram Setu as an Ancient Monument of National Importance.”
He had also urged the top court to pass an order and direct the “Union of India to engage the Geological Survey of India and Archeological Survey of India to conduct a detailed survey with respect to Ram Setu as an Ancient Monument of National Importance.”
The Union Minister in question had called a meeting in 2017 to consider Swamy’s demand to declare the Setu as a national heritage monument, but nothing happened after that. Swamy claimed that he had already won the first round of the litigation in which the Centre accepted the existence of “Ram Setu,” and he added that nothing had happened since.
Ram Setu is a chain of limestone shoals between Pamban Island, also known as Rameswaram Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.