Chief Justice of India J S Khehar on Tuesday said the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suits were a matter of “sentiments and religion” that were best resolved amicably, preferably without intervention by the courts. CJI Khehar even offered to mediate among the sides laying claim to the disputed site — however, at least 5 earlier attempts at resolving the decades-old quarrel through negotiations have not been successful. Besides the batch of title suits in the Supreme Court, two separate cases are being heard in connection with the demolition of the Babri Masjid at trial courts in Lucknow and Rae Bareli. The accused in the Lucknow case are accused of demolishing the mosque, while those in the Rae Bareli case are being tried for allegedly instigating the crowd to demolish the structure through their speeches. Both cases were investigated by the CBI. The Supreme Court is also hearing appeals by the CBI and one Haji Mehboob against an Allahabad High Court verdict of May 2010, in which the High Court upheld the dropping of conspiracy charges against senior BJP leaders, including L K Advani, in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. This case was last heard on March 6; the next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, March 22. Here is where the cases related to the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute and the demolition of the mosque are placed. Title Suits The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court had passed an order on September 30, 2010, directing in a 2-1 majority judgment that the “roughly 15,000 square feet site” occupied by the Babri Masjid before its demolition on December 6, 1992, should be divided three ways among Hindus, Muslims and the Nirmohi Akhara, an organised group of sadhus. The court passed the order while disposing of 4 title suits filed by the late Gopal Singh Visharad, the Nirmohi Akhara, the Sunni Central Waqf Board and Ram Lalla Virajman through a retired High Court judge, the late Deoki Nandan Agarwal. A batch of appeals against the Allahabad HC order is pending in the Supreme Court. In May 2011, the court had ordered status quo at the site, restoring its previous orders of 1994 and 2002 in respect of the 67 acres adjacent to the disputed site in Ayodhya. In January 2013, Justice Aftab Alam reiterated the order to maintain status quo on the title of the land. But Justice Alam retired in April 2013, and the case has not witnessed any effective hearing even on the miscellaneous applications since then. The CJI’s observations on Tuesday came after BJP MP Subramanian Swamy mentioned the matter before the court, seeking an early hearing. Swamy had submitted that the batch of cases on the title suits were pending in the apex court for the last six years, and although the pleadings were complete, no specific date or Bench for hearing the dispute had been fixed. The Bench has asked Swamy to carry out consultations and inform it of its decision on March 31. Lucknow Case ACCUSED: There are 22 accused, mostly leaders of the BJP and Shiv Sena, including the present BJP MPs from Faizabad and Unnao, Lallu Singh and Sakshi Maharaj respectively. The then DM of Faizabad, R N Srivastava, is also an accused. The other 19 are Jaibhan Singh Pawiya, Dharmendra Singh Gujar, Naveen Bhai Shukla, Acharya Dharmendra Dev, Sudhir Kakkar, Vinay Kumar Rai, Prakash Sharma, Gandhi Yadav, Vijay Bahadur Singh, Ramesh Pratap Singh, Om Prakash Pandey, Ramji Gupta, Kamlesh Tripathi, Santosh Dubey, Ram Chandra Khatri, Jai Bhagwan Goyal, Amarnath Goyal, Pawan Pandey, and Brij Bhushan Singh. CHARGES: The 22 accused are facing trial under IPC Sections 120B (conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence commited in prosecution of common object), 395 (dacoity), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender), 153A (promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 295 (injuring or defiling place of workship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief). Special Counsel for the prosecution (CBI), Ram Kumar Yadav, said, “The case is being tried in the court of Special Judge Surendra Kumar Yadav in Lucknow. So far, 195 prosecution witnesses have been examined. The last witness was Faizabad-based lawyer Madhurima Mishra, who is one of the eyewitness to the demolition. Her examination was completed on March 18.” The next hearing is on March 25. Rae Bareli Case ACCUSED: There were 8 accused initially, but 2 prominent individuals among them — Acharya Giriraj Kishore and Ashok Singhal — have now dead. Giriraj died in July 2014 and Singhal in November 2015. The remaining accused are BJP veterans L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, Union Minister Uma Bharti, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Katiyar, and VHP leaders Sadhvi Rithambhara and V H Dalmia. CHARGES: All accused are being tried under IPC Sections 153A, 153B, 147, 149 and 505. (Details above) Defence lawyer Vimal Srivastava said, “The six accused are being tried in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Lovey Yadav. So far, 58 witnesses have been examined. The last witness examined was journalist Swadesh Kumar.” The next hearing is on March 25.
