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Journalism of Courage
Ayodhya is a storm that will pass. The dignity and honour of the Supreme Court cannot be compromised because of it.8217;8217; Justice S.P. Bharucha said this in 1994 while dissenting from the majority judgment of the Supreme Court delivered by Justice J.S. Verma. The two were part of a five-judge bench constituted to pronounce upon, among other things, the acquisition by the Narasimha Rao Government of 67 acres of land in Ayodhya in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition. After a lapse of nine years, the apex court again referred the matter last week to a five-judge bench as the Ayodhya storm, far from passing, lashed the nation twice in the past one year, thanks to the Shila Pujan of March 2002 and Dharam Sansad of February 2003. The five-judge bench which will begin its hearings on March 6 has a historic opportunity to undo the damage Verma8217;s judgment did, as insinuated by Bharucha, to 8216;8216;the dignity and honour of the Supreme Court.8217;8217;
The brief of the bench is to interpret Verma8217;s judgment upholding the acquisition of the 67 acres surrounding the tiny disputed site on which the Babri Masjid once stood. The bench has to clarify whether Verma8217;s judgment, as contended by the Vajpayee Government and VHP in their own different ways, permits any part of the undisputed land to be returned to earlier owners even before the fate of the disputed site is decided by the Allahabad High Court in those long-pending title suits. The Muslim bodies, on the other hand, assert that the judgment requires status quo to be maintained on the undisputed land as well till the disposal of the title suits. There is such a vast variance in the way the two sides view this because on this vital aspect Verma8217;s judgment is, at best, ambiguous.
To be sure, Verma did not have a single word of criticism about the stated object of the acquisition. Yet, in the same judgment, he went on to replace the government8217;s policy with his own wisdom on what was the purpose of the acquisition. Under the guise of placing his own 8216;8216;construction8217;8217; on the law, Verma made out that the undisputed land of 67 acres was acquired only for the purpose of providing access to the disputed site in the event the title suits are decided in favour of Muslims. That was the only way Muslims would be able to have access to the disputed site, he said, because the undisputed land surrounding it was owned entirely by Hindus. Never mind the absurdity he conjured up that 67 acres had been acquired all around the disputed site merely to build a road to it.
But this absurdity led Verma to make the dangerous proposition of 8216;8216;superfluous area8217;8217; which he said can be returned to earlier owners at any stage. In Verma8217;s own turgid prose, 8216;8216;the embargo on transfer till adjudication relates only to the disputed area, while transfer of any part of the excess area, retention of which till adjudication of the dispute relating to the disputed area may not be necessary, is not inhibited till then.8217;8217; Thus, in Verma8217;s train of logic, there is no place for a mosque on the acquired land if the title suits go in favour of Hindus. Carving out a road to the disputed site is the sole purpose of the acquisition and the rest of the land can therefore be returned to earlier owners. The VHP has been only too happy to seize upon the opening created by Verma. It has since been clamouring for 43 acres out of the 67 acres to start the construction of the temple. This despite the fact that the Kalyan Singh Government had leased those 43 acres to the VHP in March 1992 for an annual rent of one rupee to develop a tourist attraction called Shree Ram Katha Park.
So, the only way the new five-judge bench can halt the government and VHP in their tracks is by ignoring Verma8217;s distortions and reverting to the original object of the acquisition. Whatever the gloss Verma has been trying to put on his judgment in his retirement days, the ideal solution is to constitute a bigger bench to overrule it.
