Journalism of Courage
Three weeks after the Supreme Court ruled on the title dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya, the president of the Uttar Pradesh Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, Maulana Syed Ashhad Rashidi, approached the top court Monday, seeking review of its judgment which, he said, amounted to “rewarding” the “crimes” committed by “Hindu parties”.
In his petition, Rashidi said “complete justice… can only be done by directing” the Centre and State of Uttar Pradesh “for reconstruction of the Babri Masjid”.
On November 9, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously ruled that the entire disputed land be handed over to a trust to be constituted for construction of a Ram temple and that Muslims be given five acres of either the acquired land near the site or at “a suitable prominent place in Ayodhya” for building a mosque.
The review plea by Rashidi said the Supreme Court “by virtue of the impugned order has though acknowledged few of the several illegalities committed by the Hindu Parties, particularly in 1934 (damaging the domes of the Babri Masjid), 1949 (desecrating the Babri Masjid) and 1992 (demolition of the Babri Masjid), but this Hon’ble Court has proceeded to condone the said illegal acts and has awarded the disputed site to the very party which based its claims on nothing but a series of illegal acts”.
It stated that “there can be no lasting peace without justice and accountability” and that the “Court erred in rewarding the crimes committed in 1934, 1949 and 1992, by giving title to the Hindu parties, when it had already ruled that the said acts were illegal”.
The plea, filed through advocate Ejaz Maqbool, said that by way of the order, the court “has virtually granted a mandamus to destroy the Babri Masjid and to construct a temple of Lord Ram in the said place”…”because had the Babri Masjid not been illegally demolished on December 6, 1992, the execution of the present order would have required the destruction of an existing mosque to make space for a proposed temple”.
It said Muslim parties had “neither pleaded nor prayed for” the alternate five acres of land. The Babri Masjid, the petition stated, “was demolished in brazen violation of multiple orders of this Hon’ble Court” which had also held “that the events of December 6, 1992 were an egregious violation of the rule of law”.
Though the court had “noted three of the several several illegalities committed by the Hindu parties”, it went on to “condone” them and “award the same by allotting the disputed site to the Hindu Parties” and “despite agreeing that such ouster of Muslims was calculated to deprive them of their place of worship, this Hon’ble Court has committed an error apparent by validating such dispossession”.
Though the court, it stated, had “appreciated” that Muslims were continuously offering namaz at the Babri mosque and noted that the last Friday namaz took place on December 16,1949, “it passed a contradictory direction when it directed that the inner courtyard along with the outer courtyard by handed over to the Hindu parties”.
