High Court directs Home Ministry to consider plea to confer Bharat Ratna to Netaji

The Madras High Court has directed the Union Home Ministry to consider a plea seeking conferment of Bharat Ratna on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

A division bench comprising Justice MM Sundresh and Justice S Vimala gave the direction while disposing of a PIL by K K Ramesh, Managing Trustee of Tamil Nadu Centre for Public Interest Litigation, seeking an order to confer the award to Netaji and also to declare his birth anniversary on January 23 as a public holiday.

"The matter is to be considered only by the Union Home Secretary. Therefore, we do not propose to go into the merits of the case", the bench said.

The petitioner has contended that "every Indian citizen wants to honour Subhas Chandra Bose and no one should forget the sacrifice of the great freedom fighter".

He said he made a representation to the Union Home Secretary in this regard on January 27. Since there was no response to his plea, he was moving the High Court.