Indore (Madhya Pradesh): In a plea by a retired central government official seeking permission to join Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday slammed the previous office memorandums (OMs) listing the organization in the banned category.
“…voluntary membership of a national & internationally famed organisation like RSS, for activities other than political in nature, like religious, social, philanthropic, educational cannot be proscribed through executive instructions. They ought to have been done only through duly enacted law if the necessity was felt for doing so, preferably through amendments to the Conduct rules itself,” observed a division bench comprising Justice SA Dharmadhikari and Justice Gajendra Singh.
The court said that the moratorium on joining RSS must preferably by way of the Conduct rules only and not through executive framed Official Memorandums, as it results in infringement of precious fundamental rights of not only the Central Government employees as the citizens of the country, but also members and office bearers of the organisation serving the country as part of RSS.
“OMs do not constitute a ‘law’ issued under Article 13(3)(a) of the Constitution of India, more so when they are issued on a piece of paper by the subordinate officers of the Central Government purportedly in the name of the sovereign,” the court observed.
Recently, the central government removed the mention of RSS from the impugned OMs on July 9, 2024 and filed an affidavit in the court informing about the same.
The court directed the Department of Personnel and Training and Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI to display publicly on the home page of its official website the contents and copy of the circular /OM dated 9th July, 2024 as filed in the present petition.
“This is to ensure public knowledge and information about the issuance of the said circular/ OM. Besides the above, within 15 days of the judgement of this Court, the circular /OM dated 9th July, 2024 is also directed to be transmitted to all the departments and undertakings of the Central Government across India,” the court said.
It took five decades for Govt to realize its mistake, observes court
The court also lamented the fact that it took almost five decades for the Central Government to realise its mistake; to acknowledge that an internationally renowned organisation like RSS was wrongly placed amongst the banned organisations of the country and that its removal therefrom is quintessential. “Aspirations of many central government employees of serving the countries in many ways, therefore got diminished in these five decades because of this ban, which got removed only when it was brought to the notice of this Court vide the present proceedings,” the court noted.
The Court questioned the basis of issuance of the impugned circulars/ OMs that handcuffed the freedom of lakhs of Central Government employees of the country for almost five decades from the 1960s till 2024.
“….perhaps there was never any material, study, survey or report at the relevant point of time on the basis of which the ruling dispensation arrived at a satisfaction that involvement and engagement of central government employees even with the apolitical/non-political activities of RSS must be banned for maintaining the communal fabric and secular character of the country,” the court observed.
The court also observed “…today RSS is the only nationally established self-driven voluntary organisation outside the governmental bureaucratic hierarchy, which has highest membership drawn from all the districts and talukas of the country participating actively in religious, social, educational, health and many apolitical activities, under its umbrella, which have no pertinence to political activities of RSS.”
