The Center took five decades to “ realize your mistake“Barring government employees from joining the “internationally known” Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Madhya Pradesh High Court said on Thursday, The Hindu reported.
“It took the central government nearly five decades to realise its mistake; to recognise that an organisation of international repute like RSS was wrongly placed among the banned organisations in the country and that its removal from there is essential,” the High Court said, according to The Indian Express.
The court said that the aspirations of several Union government employees to “serve the country in many ways” were, therefore, diminished in these five decades due to this ban, which was made It was removed only when it was brought to the attention of this court through this procedure.”
The comments were made by a bench of Justices Sushruta Arvind Dharmadhikari and Gajendra Singh while disposing of a petition by Purushottam Gupta, a retired Union government employee. Gupta had filed a petition before the court in September challenging the ban.
The petition was dismissed by the Center earlier this month. Lifted a 58-year ban on government employees who are members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindutva group, is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. It has been banned three times since independence. Critics say it promotes Hindu supremacy and intolerance towards minorities.
The Sangh was included in the list of organisations with which government officials could not associate in November 1966.
On Thursday, the court said it would simply dismiss the petition as infructuous, but made these observations because the issues raised in the petition have “national ramifications, especially in relation to one of the largest voluntary non-governmental organisations, namely, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.”
The court asked why the ban had been imposed in the first place and on what basis the organisation’s activities “as a whole were treated in the 1960s and 1970s as communal or anti-secular”.
“What was the empirical report, statistical survey or material that led the government of the day to arrive at an objective satisfaction of the participation of central government employees with the RSS?” the High Court questioned, according to The Hindu.
The court directed the Department of Personnel and Training and the Union Home Ministry to publish its July 9 order on the homepage of their website. They were also asked to inform all government departments about the decision within 15 days.
The Centre’s decision to lift the ban on government employees associating with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has been criticized by Congress.
“In 1966, a ban was imposed – and rightly so – on government employees participating in RSS activities,” said Congress leader Jairam Ramesh. “After June 4, 2024, relations between the self-proclaimed RSS and the RSS will be more complicated than ever. Non-biological PM (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) and the RSS have collapsed. On July 9, 2024, the 58-year ban that was in place even during Mr. (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee’s tenure as Prime Minister was lifted. Bureaucracy can now “I guess I’ll come in my underwear too.”
Ramesh was referring to the khaki shorts that were part of the Hindutva organisation’s uniform for its members until October 2016.
