Babri case in Rae Bareli: SC says let it continue

The Supreme Court today kept alive the possibility of L K Advani and M M Joshi being discharged in two days by a Rae Bareli court in the Bab...

The Supreme Court today kept alive the possibility of L K Advani and M M Joshi being discharged in two days by a Rae Bareli court in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice S Rajendra Babu declined to stay the Rae Bareli proceedings sought on the ground that the CBI had diluted the case against Advani, Joshi and six other leaders by dropping the conspiracy charge against them.

When senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A M Singhvi pressed for a stay as the Rae Bareli court was due to pass its order on charges on Wednesday, the bench said sternly: ‘‘Let the Rae Bareli proceedings go on. You can’t hold us to ransom.’’

Sibal and Singhvi appeared for writ petitions filed in public interest pleading that the apex court should restore the conspiracy charge against Advani & Co as made originally in the composite chargesheet filed by the CBI in October 1993 against the leaders and kar sevaks.

All that the bench did on the writ petitions was that it issued notices to the parties concerned, including the CBI and the leaders accused in the Rae Bareli court.

Today’s hearing began with the Mulayam Singh Yadav Governmnt’s counsel, R C Verma, seeking more time to decide its stand on a review petition challenging Mayawati’s decision of last September to transfer the case against the leaders to Rae Bareli while the kar sevaks are being tried in Lucknow in the main demolition case.

As it happened, the UP Government anyway got a respite because the apex court raised objections to the tone of the review petition against a judgment of November 2002 passed by a bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, G B Pattanaik.

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Justice Rajendra Babu said that the bench would not consider the review petition any further unless the petitioner, Mohammad Aslam alias Bhure, deletes words that are ‘‘casting aspersions on the court.’’ Bhure’s counsel, O P Sharma, asserted that he had already carried out the necessary deletions and that it was on the amended petition that the court issued notices to all the parties concerned on March 28.

The bench was annoyed with Sharma’s response. ‘‘If this is your attitude, we will dismiss your petition right now,’’ Justice Babu threatened, adding by way of an example that none of the offending words had been deleted from Page 11 of the review petition.

The example cited by the court is where the original review petition alleges in Page 11 that Pattanaik’s judgment has ‘‘carved out’’ the Rae Bareli case out of the Lucknow case ‘‘to favour VVIP accused persons.’’

The case records show that the amended petition has sought to tone this down in Page 74 saying that the new case has ‘‘seemingly come out in favour of accused persons.’’