No stand on whether Ram Sethu is a national monument: Centre

Stuck between political allies and the possibility of offending religious sentiments, the Centre told the Supreme Court that it had no  stand on whether the Ram Sethu structure between India and Sri Lanka should be declared a national monument. The Additional Solicitor General appearing for the Centre said that the government had no stand on whether the geological structure should be declared a national monument, CNN-IBN reported. The bench was hearing a petition filed by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy seeking the court’s direction to declare Ram Sethu a national monument. [caption id=“attachment_280555” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Aerial image of the geological structure .Image under CC by PlaneMad/Wikipedia Commons”]  [/caption] “The government said that they will not take a stand on the matter and will let court proceedings continue,” Swamy told mediapersons outside the Supreme Court “It is perhaps the first time that the government has given up its responsibility and let the court decide what to do next,” he said. The case relating to Ram Sethu came under judicial scrutiny after a batch of petitions were filed in the apex court challenging the ambitious Sethusamudram project, which will allegedly cause damage to the mythological bridge. The Sethusamudram project is aimed at constructing a shorter navigational route around India’s southern tip by breaching the mythological Ram Sethu, said to have been built by Lord Rama’s army of monkeys and bears to the demon king Ravana’s kingdom of Lanka. As per the Sethusamudram project, the shipping channel is proposed to be 30 metres wide, 12 metres deep and 167 kms long. BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit had sought that the Ram Setu should not be “affected at any cost” and demanded that the multi-million crore worth Sethusamudram project be implemented without demolishing the structure. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had also supported them and asked the Union government to declare Ram Sethu a national monument without further delay. UPA ally DMK had also sought that the shipping channel should not be abandoned, and its MPs have written to the Prime Minister saying that delaying it would “only lead to wanton wasting of precious public money and rare national assets created so far after immense efforts”. with inputs from PTI