‘Issue of declaring Ram Sethu as national heritage under process’
New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it was looking into the issue pertaining to declaring the Ram Sethu as a national heritage monument.
A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice J B Pardiwala, which was hearing a PIL filed by former Rajya Sabha lawmaker Subramanian Swamy on the issue, asked the BJP leader to make a representation to the government if he wished so.
“Learned Solicitor General (Tushar Mehta) states that a process is currently underway in the Ministry of Culture. He states that the petitioner (Subramanian Swamy) may submit additional communication if he may so wish,” the bench said.
The court asked the Centre to take a decision on the issue and granted Swamy the liberty to move before it again if he is dissatisfied and disposed of his interim application on the issue.
“I do not want to meet anybody... We are in the same party, it was there in our manifesto. Let them decide in six weeks or whatever,” Swamy said.
“I will come again,” the BJP leader said. At the outset of the brief hearing, Swamy said that in 2019, the then Culture Minister Prahlad Patel had called a meeting on the issue and had made a recommendation for declaring the Ram Sethu as a national heritage monument.
“The issue is that they have to say– yes’ or no’,” he said. The law officer said that the government was looking into it.
The bench, which was sitting in a three-judge combination, said that Justice PS Narasimha will not be part of the proceedings as he had earlier appeared in the matter as a counsel earlier.
Earlier, the top court had said it would take up the plea of Swamy in the second week of February.
Ram Sethu, also known as Adam’s bridge, is a chain of limestone shoals between Pamban Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.
The BJP leader had submitted that he had already won the first round of the litigation in which the Centre accepted the existence of Ram Sethu.
