SC to hear Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute on Jan 4

New Delhi: A division bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi will hear a batch of petitions in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case on January 4.
The bench, also comprising Justice S K Kaul, is likely to constitute a separate three-judge bench that will fix the date of hearing and decide on the timeline to as many as 14 appeals filed against the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment, which ruled that the 2.77 acre land be partitioned equally among three parties — the Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.
Days after taking over as the new CJI in October, Justice Gogoi rejected the Uttar Pradesh government’s plea for an early hearing and ordered the listing of these appeals in the first week of January. “We have our own priorities. Whether hearing would take place in January, March or April would be decided by an appropriate bench,” the CJI said. He also clarified that appeals would come up in January before a bench “not for hearing but for fixing the date of hearing”.
This had led to a clamour from various Hindutva parties for a law that would allow construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya without waiting for the court’s verdict ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had expressed disappointment over the Supreme Court order, saying, “sometimes, justice delayed is equivalent to injustice”, and urged that the issue be resolved at the earliest. Sangh Parivar outfit VHP had urged that the Central government bring in a legislation in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament for building Ram temple. The RSS too has called for such a law, with Sah Sarkaryawah Manmohan Vaidya saying that Ram temple was an issue of national self-respect and honour. BJP ally Shiv Sena too has taken potshots at the saffron party for not making its position clear on the demand for law.
On Monday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar made it clear that the BJP was of the view that the Supreme Court should hear the case on a daily basis to deliver an early judgment. “Our wish is that there should be a daily hearing on that matter so that we have an early judgment,” he said.
In September, then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, setting the stage for resumption of hearing on the title suit, had rejected a plea to refer to a larger bench a 1994 ruling of the apex court, in which it observed that “a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam and namaz by Muslims can be offered anywhere, even in open”.