A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Monday adjourned to January the taking up of pleas in the Ayodhya title dispute case. The bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph ordered that the Ayodhya title dispute case will be listed in January next year for fixing a date for the hearings.
Gogoi noted that the Supreme Court would in January only decide the date for beginning hearings on the pleas into the Ayodhya title dispute. "The hearing may be in January, February, March," Gogoi said. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government, had argued for expedited hearings in view of the nature of the Ayodhya dispute.
Responding to the news of the Supreme Court adjournment of the Ayodhya case, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, a BJP member, told a media organisation, “I don't want to comment since it's the decision of the Supreme Court. However, the adjournment of hearing doesn't send a good message.”
The three-member bench was to have taken up hearing of a batch of pleas against the 2010 ruling of the Allahabad High Court that ordered that the disputed land at Ayodhya be partitioned equally among the three parties: the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.
On September 27, the Supreme Court had declined to refer to a five-judge Constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement that a mosque was not integral to Islam, which had arisen during the hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute. On the same day, the Supreme Court had said pleas in the Ayodhya title dispute would be heard by a three-member bench in the week starting October 29.
The Supreme Court decision comes amid growing demands among Hindu organisations that the Narendra Modi government act to pass an ordinance to facilitate construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya. Different groups, such as the Shiv Sena and the outfit of former VHP leader Pravin Togadia, have ratcheted up rhetoric on the Ayodhya issue in recent weeks.
