Process to Declare ‘Ram Setu’ National Heritage Monument Currently Underway: Central Govt to SC

GG News Bureau

New Delhi, 19th Jan. The Central Government informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that the Ministry of Culture is in the process of declaring ‘Ram Setu’ a national heritage monument.

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala allowed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, seeking direction to the government to declare ‘Ram Setu’ as a national monument, to file representation to the Ministry on the issue.

The Supreme Court stated that the Ministry will inform the court of the Centre’s decision.

The Supreme Court issued its order after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the bench that the process is currently underway at the Ministry of Culture.

He stated that Swamy is free to submit additional communication if he so desires.

When the CJI stated that Swamy could meet with the concerned individual, he added, “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 dismissed the plea and granted Swamy the right to appeal to the Supreme Court if he was dissatisfied with the Ministry’s decision.

Swamy previously stated that the case has been pending for eight years, but the government has yet to respond to the plea.

Swamy urged the Supreme Court in his petition to issue an order directing the “Union of India, along with the National Monuments Authority (NMA), to declare Ram Setu as an Ancient Monument of National Importance.”

He also requested that the Supreme Court issue an order directing the “Union of India to engage the Geological Survey of India and the Archeological Survey of India to conduct a detailed survey with respect to Ram Setu as an Ancient Monument of National Importance.”

Swamy stated that he had already won the first round of litigation in which the Centre acknowledged the existence of the ‘Ram Setu,’ and that the union minister in charge had called a meeting in 2017 to consider his demand to declare the RamSetu a national heritage monument, but that nothing had happened since then.

Ram Setu is a chain of limestone shoals located off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu between Pamban Island, also known as Rameswaram Island, and Mannar Island, off the northwestern coast of Sri Lanka.