Dr. Subramanian Swamy, a Rajya Sabha member, asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to expedite the listing of Ram Setu’s petition for national heritage status.
When the subject came up before the Justice D.Y. Chandrachud-led bench, he let Mr. Swamy know that he would talk to the other judges on the panel and decide when the case should be next listed.
“I will discuss it with my Ld brother and see when we can list it.”
When Mr. Swamy requested an early listing earlier that day before the Bench chaired by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, he was instructed to bring it up in front of Justice Chandrachud.
Off the southern coast of Tamil Nadu, there is a bridge made of a group of limestone shoals called Ram Setu. It stretches from Mannar Island off the northern coast of Sri Lanka to Pamban Island close to Rameshwaram in South India. The epic Ramayana mentions Lord Ram building the bridge so he could travel to Sri Lanka to save Sita.
Due to the other cases before it, the Supreme Court had stated in January 2020 that it would consider Dr. Swamy’s Ram Sethu plea but had requested him to bring it up again in three months. The petition was then brought up several more times, with the most recent being on July 13 when the Bench, chaired by Chief Justice Ramana, decided to list it for hearing on July 26, 2022.
Swamy claimed before the Supreme Court that the Union Minister had called a meeting in 2017 to discuss his demand, but nothing had happened since then.
In his 2007 petition against the Sethusamudram Ship Channel project for Ram Setu’s protection, Dr. Swamy addressed the question of classifying Ram Setu as a National Heritage site, and the Apex Court granted a stay on the project’s work over Ram Sethu.
The Sethusamudram project called for massive dredging and removal of the limestone shoals that make up the mythical Sethu in order to create an 83-km-long deep water canal connecting Mannar with Palk Strait.
Read more at advocatetanwar.com