Pinnacle court’s Ayodhya verdict faces Kashi test: Mosque plea hearing today

17-05-2022

The appeal by the Masjid Committee is listed Tuesday before a Supreme Court bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and P S Narasimha.

The Supreme Court is probably going to listen to Tuesday a plea by the Committee of Management of Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, Varanasi, challenging the videography survey ordered by an area court of the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal within the Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi mosque complex. The Muslim body contends that it's contrary to provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991.

The Act states that the character of all places of worship, except Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, shall be maintained because it was on Assumption, 1947 which no suit shall be any court with relevance the conversion of the religious character of an area of worship, as existing on it date.

Incidentally, the Act itself is under challenge before the highest court with a minimum of two pending petitions questioning its Constitutional validity on the bottom that it bars review, which may be a basic feature of the Constitution, and abridges the proper to religion of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs.

Although the SC issued notice on one amongst them in March 2021, the Centre is yet to file its reply.

The appeal by the Masjid Committee, which challenges the April 21, 2022 Allahabad judicature ruling dismissing its petition against the order of a Varanasi court ordering the videographic survey of the disputed side, is listed Tuesday before a Supreme Court bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and P S Narasimha.

Significantly, a five-judge Constitution bench of the then judge of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer had, within the Ayodhya judgment of November 9, 2019, lauded the Places of Worship Act as “a legislative instrument designed to shield the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one amongst the essential features of the Constitution”.

In that 5-0 unanimous verdict — on the title suit — within the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition, the Supreme Court ruled that the two.77 acres of disputed land in Ayodhya would be handed over to a trust for the development of a Ram Mandir and a 5-acre plot allotted to the Sunni Waqf Board at an alternate site.

The Masjid Committee’s appeal contends that an earlier suit filed in 1991 by some devotees alleging that the Gyanvapi mosque was built after demolishing a temple had been stayed by the HC and also the present proceedings which were instituted in 2021, were a shot to induce round the stay.

It also said that the proceedings are “an try and disturb the communal peace and harmony and in contravention to the Places of Worship Act”.

The local court, said the Mosque Committee, should have first heard its application seeking rejection of demand for being barred by the Act, before going ahead.

Hearing a petition by five Hindu women seeking round-the-year access to hope at “a shrine behind the western wall of the mosque complex”, a civil court in Varanasi had on April 8, 2022, appointed Advocate Commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra to hold out an inspection of the disputed site — and directed him to “prepare videography of the action” and submit a report.

On April 21, the Allahabad court dismissed a petition filed by the mosque committee challenging this local court’s order. On April 26, the Varanasi court again ordered videography of the disputed site.

Though the inspection began, it absolutely was halted after the mosque committee filed an application within the court, alleging bias, and seeking replacement of the court-appointed Advocate Commissioner. 

On May 12, the Varanasi court rejected the prayer to alter Advocate Commissioner Mishra and ordered resumption of the video survey — whether or not it meant getting “locks opened/ broken”. The inspection report should be submitted on May 17, it said.

The two petitions challenging the Places of Worship Act are filed by Lucknow-based trust ‘Vishwa Bhadra Pujari Purohit Mahasangh’ together with some followers of Sanatan Vedic Religion, and Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay.

On March 12, 2021, a bench headed by the then jurist of India S A Bobde issued notice on Upadhyay’s plea. The Centre has not filed a reply and also the matter has not come up for hearing.

Upadhyay’s petition contends that the Act “has created arbitrary irrational retrospective cutoff date” and “has barred the remedies against illegal encroachment on the places of worship and pilgrimages and now Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs cannot file suit or approach court under Article 226”.

It said the Act is “unconstitutional and beyond its (Parliament’s) law making power” because it has “frustrated” the principle of law ‘ubi jus ibi remedium (where there's a right, there's a remedy), “thus violating the concept of justice and Rule of Law, which is core of Article 14”.

Besides, Article 13(2) also prohibits State from making any law which takes away or abridges fundamental rights conferred under Part-III of the Constitution and any law made in contravention to basic rights is void, it seen.

The petition by the Lucknow trust has put forth similar arguments and questioned how any law can bar the proper to hunt review of a grievance.

Soon after the Lucknow trust approached the court in June 2020, the Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind filed an impleadment application opposing it.

Urging the court to not even issue a notice claiming that that “will create fear within the minds of the Muslim community,” it said that if the petition is entertained, “it will open floodgates of litigation against countless mosques within the country and also the religious divide from which the country is recovering within the aftermath of the Ayodhya dispute will only be widened”.