By India Legal Bureau
It will perhaps be no longer mandatory for those taking up government jobs to give it in writing that they are in no way connected to the RSS or Jamaat-e-Islami. A law in this regard, framed in the sixties, is on its death-bed if media reports are to be believed.
The five decade-old order was imposed by the late PM Indira Gandhi in 1966. It was issued again in 1975 and 1980 at a time when the RSS was banned.
According to sources, the BJP-led NDA government feels that the rule is unreasonable and absurd. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India, is likely to confabulate on the issue with the home ministry, with an aim to annul the rule.
The government’s stand is that it is part of the center’s larger effort to do away with laws that are no longer in sync with the times. In other words, they are now obsolete.
The RSS has always maintained that it is nothing more than a cultural and non-political organization. And Minister of State Jitendra Singh has already told a national daily that the present government is fine with people not declaring whether they are associated with RSS or Jamaat-e-Islami.
The declaration issue came up in Goa when reports surfaced that people joining government service were asked to render a declaration that they were not part of the RSS.