Chavan govt. sat on Sanstha ban, says R.K. Singh

In 2009, the Union Home Ministry sent proposals to the governments of Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka to ban Sanatan Sanstha and two other organisations, the former Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh has told The Hindu .

Mr. Singh, now a Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Ara in Bihar, says that while he is sure about the Sanstha being recommended for a ban under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act (UAPA), he does not recollect the names of the other organisations. The Hindu has learnt that they are the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, a sister organisation of the Sanstha, and Abhinav Bharat, the radical Hindu outfit led by Sadhvi Pragya and Lt.Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit, who were arrested for their alleged role in the Malegaon blast of 2008.

A few days ago, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, in interviews with television channels, said that in 2011, he had sent a 1,000-page dossier on the Sanstha to the Centre, but no action had been taken. During that time, the UPA government was in power at the Centre.

Mr. Singh, who served as Home Secretary from June 2011 to 2013, said that Mr. Chavan never sent the proposal on his own volition and sent a reply after 15-20 letters from the Centre. He said Mr. Chavan chose to reply after a delay of a year and a half.

Mr. Singh said, “It was not the Maharashtra government which took the initiative [to ban the Sanstha]; it was the government of India. The GoI wrote to Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka, asking them for information on three organisations, one of which was this [Sanstha] and the other two I don’t recall. The Home Ministry wrote and wrote, while some inputs came from Goa and some from Karnataka, Maharashtra did not reply at all, they did not reply till April 2011 when they sent some papers.”

He added, “The replies were examined and the file went up to the then Home Minister P. Chidambaram….he pointed out rightly, that to ban any organisation, the following crimes should have been committed under some specific sections of the IPC and the UAPA. And the question was whether there was any credible basis to believe that the organisations had violated any such section? Maharashtra did not show any credible basis to believe so….and then again reminders were sent. In 2013-14, the matter was again put up to then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, and it was decided that the State has not been able to give any material to show that the organisation was involved. Individuals may have committed the crime, whether the organisation was party to it was something to be established.”

As reported by The Hindu earlier, Mr. Chidambaram refused to ban Sanatan Sanstha under Section 35 (3) (c) of the UAPA, citing lack of “specific incidents, activities.”

The Maharashtra Police have said that a member of the Sanstha, Samir Gaikwad, was involved in rationalist Govind Pansare’s murder, along with another accused identified as Ravindra Patil, who is wanted by the National Investigation Agency in a 2009 case. Patil has been absconding after his name surfaced in the Murgaon church blast case of 2009, when two members of the Sanstha were killed after the IEDs they were carrying on a scooter detonated accidentally.