Supreme Court to weigh on one very crucial part of the Ayodhya dispute.
Supreme Court is set to pronounce its verdict today on the issue whether the Ismail Farooqui judgement in which it was said that mosque is not integral part of Islam will go to a larger Constitution bench or not. The verdict is likely to be pronounced around 2 PM.
M Siddiq, one of the original litigants of the Ayodhya case who has died and is being represented through his legal heir, had assailed certain findings of the 1994 verdict in the case of M Ismail Faruqui holding that a mosque was not integral to the prayers offered by the followers of Islam.
It was argued by Muslim groups before a special bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S A Nazeer that the "sweeping" observation of the apex court in the verdict needed to be reconsidered by a five-judge bench as "it had and will have a bearing" on the Babri Masjid-Ram Temple land dispute case. During the hearing, SC took strong offence to Hindu Taliban comment made by Rajeev Dhawan, who is the lawyer for the petitioners. However, despite SC ire, Dhawan refused to back down saying those who broke the Babri Mosque in 1992 are indeed Hindu Talibans.
Earlier, Hindu groups had opposed the plea of their Muslim counterparts that the 1994 verdict holding that a mosque was not integral to the prayers offered by the followers of Islam be referred to a larger bench.
The special bench of the apex court is seized of a total of 14 appeals filed against the high court judgement delivered in four civil suits.
A three-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court, in a 2:1 majority ruling, had in 2010 ordered that the land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.
In July, the UP government told the Supreme Court that some Muslim groups were trying to delay the hearing in the "long-pending" Ayodhya temple-mosque land dispute case by seeking reconsideration of the observation in the 1994 verdict that a mosque was not integral to Islam.
Ahead of the verdict, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said: "If Parliament makes a wrong law that is against the Constitution, SC becomes Supreme. But the right to make a law is with the Parliament. I said we should choose the route of Parliament, didn't say that we are going to take that route."
(With agency inputs)
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