Former senior public servants of the Constitutional Conduct Group have called for the withdrawal of the Centre’s order that lifted the ban on government employees wishing to join the RSS.

A total of 115 retired senior bureaucrats, including former foreign secretaries Sujatha Singh and Shivshankar Menon, have endorsed the statement.

The group said: “The import of this government directive is that from now on, a district magistrate, a police officer, a secretary to the government, a professor, a teacher or a government doctor, can be openly a member of or participate in the activities of an organisation which rejects the pluralist, secular core of the Indian Constitution. We also note with regret the recent statements of high court judges on the cusp of retirement of their ideological affinity with the RSS...,” it said.