The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday stayed directives issued earlier this month requiring private organisations to take permission from the state government for conducting activities on its premises, reported PTI.

The Congress government in Karnataka had issued the directives on October 18. The action was likely to impact the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The directives had come days after Karnataka Information Technology Minister Priyank Kharge wrote to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seeking a ban on RSS activities in all public spaces.

The Dharwad bench of the High Court on Tuesday stayed the directives while hearing a petition by the Hubballi-based Punashchetana Seva Samsthe, reported The Hindu.

The matter was posted for further hearing on November 17.

Advocate Ashok Haranahalli, representing the petitioner, told the bench that the directives violated the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

“Even holding a laughter club in the park would be considered an illegal gathering as per the government’s order,” the advocate told the court, according to The Hindu.

In its order, the court said that the state government had “taken away” the citizens’ freedom of speech and expression, and the right to assemble peacefully through its order, reported the newspaper.

Siddaramaiah stated that the state government would challenge the Dharwad bench’s order, reported India Today.

On the other hand, the BJP’s state unit president BY Vijayendra said that the judgement was a “setback for the Siddaramaiah government”.

“Priyank Kharge, from the last couple of weeks, was discussing banning RSS and all these issues,” Vijayendra was quoted as saying by India Today. “Probably with this High Court judgement, the state government has to shut its mouth because today justice has prevailed.”

On October 12, Kharge said in a social media post that he had written to Siddaramaiah with the aim to prevent “the RSS’s attempts to create negative impacts on children and the youth community, and to uphold the ideals of the Constitution, unity, equality and integrity”.

Speaking about the state government’s plans to issue new rules to regulate private activities in public spaces, ​​Karnataka’s Education Minister Madhu Bangarappa told ANI on October 16 that students and parents had complained about the “ideological mentality” of non-education activities being carried out in schools.

“So, we had to make an order in the interest of children,” he was quoted as saying. “Anything not good for children will not be allowed in our schools.”

The state’s Law Minister HK Patil told reporters that the circular was not specific to any organisation.

The BJP had criticised Kharge’s remarks about the RSS, saying that he was criticising a “patriotic organisation” to conceal his “administrative failures”.

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