Plea to expedite Ayodhya hearing

New Delhi: A petitioner in Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit on Tuesday urged the Supreme court to hold an early hearing of the batch of cross petitions challenging 2010 Allahabad High court judgment dividing the 2.7 acres of disputed site in three equal parts giving one each to  Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and Sunni Wakf Board.

Seeking an early hearing of the title suit, one of the petitioners Gopal Singh Visharad told the bench headed by the Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that three member mediation committee headed by former top court judge Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla has not made much progress.

As senior counsel P.S.Narasimha appearing for Visharad mentioned the matter for an early hearing of the cross petitions challenging the Allahabad high court judgment, the bench asked to file an application to that affect. A constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer is heasruing challenge to 2010 Allahabad high court judgment.

The petitioner Siddiqui represented by his legal heirs, the Nirmohi Akha-ra, the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, Bhagwan Shri Ram Viraj-man, All India Hindu Mah-asabha’s Swami Chakra-pani, the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, the Akhil Bharatiya Sri Ram-janam Bhoomi Punardhar Samiti and others have challenged the 2010 high court judgment on the title suit.

The top court had on March 8 ordered the mediation of Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Ayodhya title dispute by a three-member panel headed by its former judge Justice F.M.I. Kalifulla with religious preacher Ravi Shankar and senior counsel and an acclaimed mediator Shriram Panchu as its members. On May 10, the top court on the request of the mediation committee gave it further time till August 15 to undertake its task and submit the report.

The SC had ordered mediation to find some amicable solution of contentious and emotive issue during the time that the top court registry would be taking for putting in place all the Ayodhya case related papers in order including their translation.

The court had February 26, 2019, said, “We are of the view that to proceed with the hearing of the (title suit) cases it is necessary to have on record translation of the depositions as well as the Exhibits on which no controversy can be raised at a later point of time to derail the hearing once the same commences.”

Having underlined the significance of the translated copies of the deposition and exhibits free from any controversy, the court had ordered, “We direct the parties to satisfy themselves with regard to the accuracy, correctness, relevance, etc. of the translation filed in the Registry by the State of Uttar Pradesh as well as the translated copies of the Exhibits made available by the parties and point out their respective agreements/objections stating precisely the part of the translations on which objections/disagreements are being raised.”

Once the said process is completed, which we expect the parties to do within eight weeks from today, the court said had said on February 26 that the “further orders will follow so that hearing of the cases can begin in the right earnest.”