As Ayodhya hearings continue, a look at key arguments made so far

Is anyone from the 'Raghuvansha'—the descendants of Lord Ram’s dynasty—still living in Ayodhya, the Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi wondered, in the course of the day-to-day hearings in the politically sensitive Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case in the Supreme Court. The hearings will enter their 11th day on Monday.

Senior advocate K. Parasaran, appearing for Ram Lalla, the deity, did not quite have an answer to the question. But away from the Supreme Court where the bench is hearing the case of the dispute over the ownership of 2.77 acres in Ayodhya, BJP MP from Rajsamand, Diya Kumari, claimed her family had descended from Lord Ram’s son, Kusha. Her father, she told a television channel, was the 309th descendant of the Raghuvansha, and she had documents that she could adduce as evidence before the Supreme Court. For good measure, the BJP MP said descendants of Lord Ram were all over the world.

The other members of the Constitutional bench hearing the case are Justices S.A. Bobde, D.Y. Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S.A. Nazeer. The thought of whether any of Lord Ram’s descendants currently lived in Ayodhya came up when Parasaran was responding to another point the bench had raised.

The bench conceded that Hindu deities have been legally treated as juristic persons, who can hold properties and institute, defend and intervene in lawsuits. But how can the 'Janmasthan'—place of birth of the deity—be regarded as a juristic person having stakes as a litigant in the case?

The counsel for Ram Lalla argued that the idol is “not necessary in Hinduism for a place to be regarded as a temple. Hindus do not worship gods in any definite form, rather they worship them as divine incarnation having no form”.

The bench then asked the lawyers representing the Hindu groups—the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla through his counsel—to present proof of their claim that the mosque was built on the remains of a temple.

Senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan, who also represented Ram Lalla, told the Supreme Court that a stone slab, which fell out of the western wall of the Babri Masjid, had inscriptions dating back to the 12th century, in Sanskrit, indicating it was a temple to Lord Vishnu who Hindus believed took the human form of Ram.

The slabs and the inscription gave credence to the belief that the Babri Masjid was built on the temple. Vaidyanathan took recourse to ASI excavation reports in the matter and said the mosque was not built on agricultural land, but on a pre-existing structure.

Vaidyanathan also read out statements from Muslim witnesses, saying if the mosque was built after demolishing a temple, Muslims would not consider it a mosque as they cannot be built on land occupied forcibly.

The counsel also referred to books and popular belief to establish that the site was the birthplace of Lord Ram, and there was a temple over which the Babri Masjid had been built.

Justice S.A. Bobde asked why there was no reference to a Ram temple in Baburnama, the memoir of the first Mughal emperor. Ram Lalla’s counsel admitted there was no reference, but argued that Babur had asked his military commander to build a mosque at that site.

The fight for the land—where Hindus believe Ram was born, and Muslims argued a mosque existed till it was pulled down by BJP supporters in 1992—resulted in the Allahabad High Court verdict of 2010 dividing the 2.77 acres equally among Ram Lalla, the Sunni Wakf Board and the Nirmohi Akhari. In all, 14 appeals have been filed against the Allahabad High Court verdict.

The continuous hearings at the Supreme Court, which began on August 9, were not held only on August 19 when Gogoi,who heads the Constitutional Bench hearing the case, had other urgent meetings.

Gogoi also told the counsels representing different parties that the court was in no hurry to finish the hearings, and that lawyers on both sides could make arguments as they wished.

But it became clear that that this did not give lawyers the chance to drag on aimlessly. On the 10th day, the bench told Sushil Jain, advocate for the Nirmohi Akhara, to be “precise and pinpointed” in his submissions.

The day-to-day hearings began after efforts at mediation failed. Meanwhile, Surendra Kumar Yadav, the trial judge in the case, knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court for police protection. In 2017, Yadav was directed by the Supreme Court to conduct day-to-day trial in the case, and complete it in two years.