The Supreme Court of India has set October 18 deadline for completion of all arguments in the protracted Ram-Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land title dispute, the 70-year-old litigation by Hindu and Muslim parties for the ownership of the 2.77 acre disputed land in Ayodhya. The controversial case, among the most important cases in the history of India, inched closer to finality, with the Supreme Court confirming that its verdict would be pronounced on or before November 17, the day CJI Ranjan Gogoi retires.
After lawyers of both Hindu and Muslim parties - K Parasaran, C S Vaidyanathan and Rajeev Dhavan - gave a rough estimate of the time they would need to conclude arguments, the five-judge constitution bench of CJI Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer held a brief consultation with each other and said, “We hope to conclude the hearing by October 18, which will give us four weeks to write the judgment.” The bench also added if extra days for hearing were required, it would consider sitting on Saturdays.
This gives the parties some more hearing days to complete their arguments as the court will remain closed on October 2 for Gandhi Jayanti and six days, beginning October 7, for Dussehra holidays. The Muslim parties said they would complete their arguments by October 27, while the Hindu parties said they would require two or three more days, with the Muslim parties again giving concluding arguments for a day or two.
The bench also directed parties to suggest the kind of relief they expected on the verdict given by the Allahabad High Court which apportioned the disputed land equally among the deity, Sunni Waqf Board and Nirmohi Akhara. “Argue on how the Supreme Court can mould the relief,” it said.
Anxiety has been building up on both sides as the hearing continued without an end in sight and with the looming retirement of CJI Gogoi on November 17. If the hearing did not conclude and the judges did not get adequate time to write their opinions prior to pronouncement of judgments, and Justice Gogoi had retired, then the bench would have to be reconstituted for commencement of fresh hearing. Experts put the impending verdict on a scale equal to the 1973 judgment of a 13-judge constitution bench in the Keshavananda Bharti case, in which it delineated Constitution’s basic structure doctrine and made it inviolable.
In 1989, the Allahabad HC had withdrawn to itself the title suits pending before Faizabad district court in the Ayodhya matter. The first suit was filed by Gopal Singh Visharad in 1950 who is now represented by his legal heir Rajendra Singh, while the second suit was filed by another Hindu devotee which was later withdrawn. The third suit was filed by Nirmohi Akhara in 1959, and fourth one, by Sunni Waqf Board, two years later. The last one was by the deity through next friend Devki Nandan Agarwal in 1989. During the pendency of suits in the HC, the Babri Masjid was demolished by kar sevaks on December 6, 1992.
The HC had heard arguments from parties and examined evidence for nearly 100 days before delivering its verdict on September 30, 2010. Though both Hindu and Muslim sides had promptly filed appeals against the HC verdict in the SC seeking sole right over the entire disputed land, the appeals were taken up for day-to-day hearing only on August 6.
