Mulayam faces baptism by Babri

The review petition filed by public interest litigant Mohammad Aslam alias Bhure wants the apex court to quash Mayawati’s notification of September 2002 and direct that Advani & Co be tried along with kar sevaks in the Lucknow special court on the charge of conspiracy.

It alleges that Mayawati’s notification favouring the BJP leaders was ‘‘fraudulent, misleading, baseless and dishonest.’’

The stand Mulayam takes on the review petition will be a test of how far he decides to go to bait the BJP given the political flux in his state. And whether he walks the talk he gave in Parliament last month when he was one of the key players who paralysed the Lok Sabha over the very same issue.

What will be of immediate interest in the Supreme Court on Monday is the application filed by Bhure seeking a stay on proceedings before the Rae Bareli court. The application assumes urgency especially because two days later the Rae Bareli court is due to pronounce its order on framing charges against the eight leaders.

The SC’s decision to admit the review petition on March 28 was itself unusual: normally, most review petitions are dismissed by judges right in their chambers.

In this case, however, a three-judge bench headed by Justice S Rajendra Babu, admitted the review petition on March 28 and issued notices to the Uttar Pradesh Government, CBI and the accused.

Interestingly, none has so filed a counter affidavit. So, when the matter comes up for hearing for the first time on Monday, it is more than likely that the bench will ask the UP Government to spell out its position on the challenge to its notification.

Since review proceedings are generally conducted expeditiously, Mulayam Singh Yadav will sooner rather than later have to state whether he stands by Mayawati’s action on the Ayodhya issue.

Today, Mayawati made no bones of the claim that she helped the BJP leaders by ensuring a separate trial for them in Rae Bareli and thereby exempting them from the main demolition case in Lucknow.

Her publicly stated grievance is that for all the help she rendered them on the Ayodhya front, the BJP leaders failed to reciprocate (presumably in the context of the Taj corridor controversy).

Last November, a bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, G B Pattanaik, had dismissed all the objections of Bhure’s counsel O P Sharma and had upheld Mayawati’s notification regarding the Rae Bareli court.

The review petition filed subsequently alleges that Pattanaik’s judgment was ‘‘discriminatory’’ and was passed against all norms ‘‘to benefit eight VVIPs.’’

The most plausible option before the Mulayam Singh Government is to tell the court that it has no objection to the review petition being allowed. If Pattanaik’s verdict is set aside, Mulayam Singh will be able to issue a fresh notification (on the lines advised earlier by the Allahabad HighCourt) to ensure that all the accused, including the eight leaders, are tried together in the Lucknow special court on the charge of conspiracy.