The Supreme Court on Monday ordered status quo on the disputed site of the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and stayed the judgment of the Allahabad High Court. This interim order will enable the devotees to continue ‘puja’ (worship) at the makeshift temple built near the spot where the mosque stood till December 1992.
A Bench consisting of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice R M Lodha described the September 2010 judgment of the high court “strange”, especially the division of the site into three parts.
Justice Lodha observed that none had asked for such partition and the court did it on its own.
A three-judge Bench of the high court had, in a lengthy judgment, directed partition of the 2.77 acre on which the structure once stood into three parts among Muslims, Hindus and Nirmohi Akhara.
During the half-hour hearing in a crowded courtroom, the judges remarked that “a new dimension was given by the high court as the decree of partition was not sought by the parties. It was not prayed by anyone. It has to be stayed. It is a strange order,” the Bench said.
The court clarified that there shall be no religious activity on the 67 acre land acquired by the central government following the demolition of the 16th century structure by Hindu devotees. The present order substantially continues the orders of the Supreme Court passed in 1993 and 2002 awaiting the judgment of the high court regarding the ownership of the site.
“It is a difficult situation now, the position is that it (the high court judgment) has created litany of litigation,” the Bench observed.
The Bench was hearing a batch of appeals filed by Nirmohi Akhara, Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, Jamait Ulama-I-Hind, Sunni Central Wakf Board and others.
The Wakf Board and Jamait Ulama-I-Hind want the whole high court judgment to be set aside. According to them, the high court relied on faith rather than evidence.
The high court judgment created a sort of history as it ran into more than 5,000 pages, referred to 274 books and cited 800 judgments.
The Ayodhya issue had raised communal passions for more than a decade and led to large-scale riots in several parts of the country, claiming hundreds of lives.
