Babri row: UP seeks time for old records

Following the court directives,UP chief secretary Atul Kumar Gupta told the court today that the government was unable to locate the said documents.

The petitioner,advocate Zafaryab Jilani,had demanded seven documents from the government and four documents from the district magistrate of Faizabad. Of these,the government submitted the official copies of two documents (dated December 26,1949 and December 27,1949),whereas the plaintiff demanded the original documents.

According to Jilani,the documents were related to a conversation between the state government and the Faizabad DM regarding idols in the Babri mosque.

“The government had asked the DM to remove the idols from the Babri mosque to which the DM had said it would cause law and order problem. However,when forced,the DM had requested his transfer,” Jilani claimed.

On Tuesday,the three-judge bench comprising Justice S R Alam,Justice Sudhir Agarwal and Justice D V Sharma,while hearing the case,asked the state government to come up with a definite reason why the documents could not be presented before the court. Denying sanction of a month’s time to the state government,the bench asked the chief secretary to submit their reply by May 29.

The case is one of the many cases that have been filed from time to time on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi issue. The first case was filed by Gopal Singh Visharad in 1950 against Sunni Waqf Board. The second case was in 1959 by Nirmohi Akhada against the Sunni Waqf Board. The third case was filed by Sunni Waqf Board in 1961 in which Nirmohi Akhada was made the party whereas in 1989 Deoki Nandan Agarwal filed a case by the name of Bhagwan Sri Ram Lala against the Sunni Waqf Board. All cases have been clubbed together and the hearing is going on daily basis.

In all the cases,the basic issues before the court are “whether the site in question is the birth place of Lord Rama”,“whether the building of the mosque was constructed after the demolition of a temple” and “whether Muslims remained in possession of the building after December 22,1949 or the Hindus were offering prayers since then”.