The verdict in the Babri Masjid demolition case will be delivered on September 30, and all the 32 accused, including BJP stalwarts L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Umar Bharti, have been told to be present in court during the judgment.
The judgment in the 28-year-old case will be delivered by Special CBI court judge Surendra Kumar Yadav. The court completed all proceedings in the case by recording statements of all 32 accused.
The statement of veterans Advani and Joshi were recorded in July this year before the special CBI court via video conferencing. Both leaders have denied the charges against them.
The expected date of the verdict is in line with the one-month extension given by the Supreme Court which had instructed the Special CBI court to deliver the judgment by September 30. The earlier deadline had expired on August 31.
Advani, Joshi and Bharti, who were key senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party in December 1992 when the 15th century mosque was demolished, are accused of conspiracy that led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid. It was believed that the mosque stood on the site of an ancient temple in Ayodhya, the birth place of Lord Ram.
Bharti, meanwhile, had said that to her, the judgment in the case does not matter as she will be blessed if she is “sent to the gallows”.
Accused in Babri Masjid demolition case:
L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sudhir Kakkar, Satish Pradhan, Ram Chandra Khatri, Santosh Dubey, Om Prakash Pandey, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Ram Vilas Vedanti, Vinay Katiyar, Prakash Sharna, Gandhi Yadav, Jai Bhan Singh, Lallu Singh, Kamlesh Tripathi, Brij Bhushan Singh, Ramji Gupta, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Champat Rai, Sakshi Maharaj, Vinay Kumar Rai, Naveen Bhai Shukla, Dharamdas, Jai Bhagwan Goel, Amarnath Goel, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Pawan Pandey, Vijay Bahadur Singh, R.M. Srivastava and Dharmendra Singh Gujjar