SC to hear plea seeking declaration of Ram Sethu as national heritage monument

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear on July 26 the plea of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seeking a direction to the Centre to declare the Ram Sethu as a national heritage monumentRam Sethu also known as Adams bridge is a chain of limestone shoals between Pamban Island off the southeastern coast of Tamil Nadu and Mannar Island off the northwestern coast of Sri LankaA bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli took note of the submissions of Swamy that it was an urgent and small matter needed to be listed for hearingOn a lighter note the CJI told Swamy that let it be listed after my retirement The CJI then listed it for July 26On February 23 Swamy had also mentioned the plea saying that it has not come up for hearing for the last many months and that it be not deleted from the cause listSwamy had mentioned his plea for urgent hearing on April 8 last year as wellOn January 23 2020 the apex court had said it will consider Swamys plea after three monthsThe BJP leader had submitted that he had already won the first round of the litigation in which the Centre accepted the existence of Ram SethuHe further said the Union minister concerned had called a meeting in 2017 to consider his demand but nothing happened subsequentlyThe BJP leader had raised the issue of declaring the Ram Sethu a national monument in his PIL against the controversial Sethusamudram Ship Channel project initiated by the UPAI governmentThe matter reached the apex court which in 2007 had stayed work for the project on the Ram SethuThe Centre later said it had considered the socioeconomic disadvantages of the project and was willing to explore another route to the shipping channel project without damaging the Ram SethuThat the Government of India intends to explore an alternative to the earlier alignment of Skeletomuscular Ship Channel project without affectingdamaging the Adams BridgeRam Sethu in the interest of the nation the affidavit filed by the ministry had saidThe court had then asked the government to file a fresh affidavitThe Sethusamudram shipping channel project has been facing protests from some political parties environmentalists and certain Hindu religious groups Under the project a 83 kmlong deep water channel was to be created linking Mannar with Palk Strait by extensive dredging and removal of limestone shoalsThe apex court had on November 13 2019 granted six weeks to the Centre to clarify its stand on the Ram Sethu It had also granted liberty to Swamy to approach the court if the response of the Centre was not filedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever