Will Ayodhya verdict get delayed further? Suspense to end

The petition seeking deferment of the verdict in the Ayodhya title suit will come up for hearing in the Supreme Court (SC) today.

However, contending litigants in the suit — the Central Waqf Board and the Nirmohi Akhara — have sought quick judgment, and deferment of the order for resolution through reconciliation, respectively.

On September 23, a day before a three-judge Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court (HC) was to deliver judgment in the 60-year-old title suits, a retired bureaucrat aged 73, Ramesh Chandra Tripathi, filed a plea in the SC for the deferment of the hearing citing hope of an amicable resolution and several grounds, including the Commonwealth Games.

The petition, which sought to enable another attempt at an out-of-court settlement in the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi suit, will be heard by a bench of chief justice SH Kapadia, and justices Aftab Alam and KS Radhakrishnan.

The HC had resumed hearing the suits following an SC order in 1994 that partially quashed a central law acquiring the disputed land and surrounding areas. The order directed the revival of the suits and said the matter should be decided in accordance with law settled by the privy council at Lahore in 1940.   

The SC also said that the dispute should be settled only by judicial dispensation.

Eyebrows have been raised at the unusual recent developments, with analysts feeling that the last moment intervention of Tripathi, a silent spectator, is not innocent.

Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that the contesting parties in the suit “have to resolve the matter among themselves through discussion. If it is not possible, then the court verdict has to be accepted”.

Attorney-general Goolam E Vahanvati, whose response to the SC will be crucial, has maintained strict silence on the likely stand of the Centre, which a section of keen watchers feel is the sole beneficiary of a delayed judgment. While the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has ruled out an out-of-court settlement of the suits. “The issue should be settled by the law courts,” the AIMPLB has said.

Nirmohi Akhara counsel Ranjit Lal Verma is also seeking the apex court’s intervention for granting extension to an HC judge, Dharam Veer Sharma, who will retire on September 30. The judge is one of three on the HC bench hearing the dispute.

The HC had reserved the verdict on July 27 and announced it would be pronounced on September 24. The apex court later imposed an interim stay on the pronouncement of the judgment till Tuesday, when it is scheduled to take a final call.