Ayodhya: Govt took stand 4 months ago

Tuesday’s four-page application asserts without any substantiation that the interim order passed by a three-judge bench ‘‘does not survive’’ because of a judgment delivered by a five-judge bench in 1994 in what is called Farooqui’s case.

But why the Government feels that the two rulings are in conflict becomes clear from the 19-page counter-affidavit filed by the Home Ministry in October 2002.

The petition filed by Mohammad Aslam Bhure stated that the 1994 Supreme Court verdict required status quo to be maintained in the entire 67-acre acquired land ‘‘till the final decision in the title suits’’ pending before the Allahabad high court.

The Government’s counter-affidavit, while clarifying that the total area acquired in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition was actually 71 acres, declared that the status quo order in the 1994 judgment applied only to the 0.3-acre disputed site ‘‘on which the structure commonly known as the Ram Janma Bhoomi-Babri Masjid stood in Ayodhya.’’

In its interpretation of the 1994 verdict, the counter-affidavit submitted that ‘‘the total acquired area of 71 acres including the disputed area vests in the Central Government. The Central Government as a Statutory Receiver is duty bound to maintain status quo in the disputed area as on 7.1.1993 till the final adjudication of the title suits pending for disposal of the Allahabad high court.’’

This tallies with the VHP’s stand in the case that ‘‘the duty to maintain status quo was limited to the disputed area’’ and the rest of the acquired land ‘‘vests in the Central Government absolutely with the power to restore it back to the original owners.’’

The October counter-affidavit also puts in perspective the recent application seeking vacation of the interim order which not only barred any kind of religious activity on the acquired land but also ruled that no part of it ‘‘shall be handed over by the Government to anyone.’’

While claiming that the bar on religious activity has ‘‘become infructuous,’’ the application the Government has come up with in the run-up to the VHP’s Dharam Sansad due on February 22 said that ‘‘the state of uncertainty’’ about the 71 acre land needs to be resolved as it is ‘‘likely to generate problems even in the future.’’

Read with its October counter affidavit, the Government’s latest move seems to be aimed at clearing the way for handing over a part of the undisputed land to the VHP to begin construction of the Ram temple.