Issue of declaring Ram Setu as national heritage monument under process, Centre to SC

Ram Setu, also known as Adam's bridge, is a chain of limestone shoals between Pamban Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu

The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that the process for declaring Ram Setu as a national monument is under way in the Ministry of Culture.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala asked BJP leader Subramanian Swamy to provide additional materials to the ministry, which was looking into the issue.

The court also asked the Union government to apprise it when the process gets culminated.

Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the government was already looking into the matter and Swamy can make a representation before the authorities concerned.

Swamy, for his part, said in 2019, the minister concerned had called meetings of all officials, and subsequently, the file has gone to the Prime Minister. "Why are you dragging your feet? It is part of the manifesto too," he said, adding the government stopped replying to his letters.

The court allowed Swamy to make a representation while granting him liberty to take requisite legal recourse if aggrieved by the final decision. In his plea, Swamy sought direction to the Union government and the National Monument Authority to declare 'Ram Setu' as a monument of national importance.

He claimed the Centre has already accepted the existence of 'Ram Setu' and a meeting was also convened in 2017 to consider his demand but nothing had happened afterwards.

In reply to a query put by an Independent MP from Haryana, Kartikeya Sharma, in the Rajya Sabha of scientific research on the structure, Union Minister Jitendra Singh had in December, 2022 said, "If it is said in simple words, it is difficult to say that the real form of Ram Setu is present there. However, there are some indications which suggest that the structure may be present there."