Written by: Express News Service
2 min readNew DelhiSep 4, 2013 02:38 AM IST
First published on: Sep 4, 2013 at 02:38 AM IST
Supreme Court Tuesday allowed the CBIs request for an early hearing in the Babri Masjid demolition case and fixed it for October. The case was earlier scheduled to come up in December.
After the CBI counsel made an urgent mentioning,a Bench led by Justice G S Singhvi accepted the request. Counsel for senior BJP leader L K Advani and others,named as accused,did not oppose the early date.
The appeal has been filed by the CBI against an Allahabad High Court verdict on dropping conspiracy charges against Advani and 19 others.
Appearing for the CBI,senior advocate P P Rao submitted that the case was directed to be listed in September and the registry record disclosed it will not come up till December. Senior advocate K K Venugopal,appearing for Advani,agreed to the early hearing date.
The CBI now requires to satisfy the court on reasons for the delay in filing the appeal against the High Court order. Only after the CBI convinces the court of valid reasons will the appeal be heard on merit. In a previous hearing,the court pulled up the CBI to assert the case was a matter of national importance saying it was for the court to decide that and if the CBI felt so,it need not have approached it after a delay of more than three months.
The CBI appeal is against decisions of a special CBI court and the HC to drop criminal conspiracy charges against Advani,Kalyan Singh,Uma Bharti,Vinay Katiyar,Murli Manohar Joshi and several others.
There are two sets of cases,one against Advani and others who were on the dais at Ram Katha Kunj in Ayodhya in December 1992,when Babri Masjid was demolished and second,against unknown kar sevaks in and around the disputed structure.
After filing initial chargesheet against Advani and 20 others for promoting enmity between classes,and hampering national integration,the CBI sought to invoke criminal conspiracy charges too but the trial court as well as HC repelled the agencys attempt.
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