Ayodhya hearing deferred, Supreme Court ruling unlikely before Lok Sabha polls

NEW DELHI: With the much-anticipated start to proceedings in the Ayodhya dispute in the Supreme Court stuttering again with Justice U U Lalit recusing himself and the court directing the registry to inspect voluminous records in several languages, a verdict before the Lok Sabha elections appears unlikely.

Appearance as an advocate more than 20 years ago in a Babri Masjid demolition contempt case against then UP CM and others became the reason for Justice Lalit to withdraw from the five-judge bench on Thursday after senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for the Muslim parties, drew the SC’s attention to the matter. This forced the CJI Ranjan Gogoi-led bench to defer charting the schedule for arguments to January 29.

When the CJI and Justices S A Bobde, N V Ramana, Lalit and D Y Chandrachud assembled, Dhavan pointed to the SC’s November 20, 1997 order in the ‘Mohd Aslam alias Bhure Vs Kalyan Singh’ case that showed Lalit’s appearance as an advocate.

Constitution bench will get 36 days to hear Ayodhya case before polls
Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for the Muslim parties in the Ayodhya dispute in the Supreme Court on Thursday, pointed to Justice U U Lalit’s presence as an advocate in a November 20, 1997 contempt case against the then UP CM and others for demolition of the Babri mosque in violation of the state’s undertaking.

Though Dhavan extended the usual courtesy — “We do not have a problem if Justice Lalit continues to hear the case. We thought it was right to bring the fact to the court’s notice and it was up to Justice Lalit to take a decision in this regard” — Justice Lalit immediately conveyed his disinclination to Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for one of the Hindu parties, said the case relates to contempt of court while the court is hearing the first appeals against the Allahabad high court’s decision on title suits.

While the bench can be reconstituted following Lalit’s recusal, the humongous case documents — kept in 15 sealed iron trunks in a locked room in the SC — which are subject to differing interpretations may rule out early disposal. Though advocates for Muslim and Hindu parties had informed a three-judge SC bench last year that all documents have been translated to English, the CJI-led bench recorded on Thursday: “Whether the depositions and documents which are in Persian, Sanskrit, Arabic, Gurmukhi, Urdu and Hindi etc have been translated is not clear.”

Since the Constitution bench sits only three days a week, it would get a maximum of 36 hearing days before the April-May national elections, which would be too little to complete the hearing in the case.

The Allahabad HC, which in its 2010 verdict divided the disputed land equally among Ram Lalla (idol), Nirmohi Akhara and Sunni Wakf Board, had framed 120 issues, considered depositions of 88 witnesses recorded in 13,886 pages, examined 227 documents, in English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Urdu and Gurmukhi, which were cited before a judgment running into 8,533 typed pages was delivered.

“The orders of this court, particularly the order dated 10th August, 2015, indicate that though the learned counsel for the parties had attempted to submit some translated version of the evidence there is a dispute with regard to the correctness of the translations made,” it said.

After Dhavan made his point, judges on the bench conferred with each other in hushed voices for two minutes and then the CJI said: “It is not a question what case the court is hearing. The point is, it has been mentioned to us that Justice Lalit had appeared in a related case (as an advocate). He feels it would not be correct for him to participate in further proceedings of the case.”

With Justice Lalit withdrawing, the CJI would have to reconstitute the bench by drafting in another SC judge and notify it before January 29. This is the third adjournment in the case after a 3-judge bench headed by then CJI Dipak Misra had by 2:1 majority rejected pleas from Muslim parties to refer the dispute to a five-judge bench and posted the matter for hearing before a 3-judge bench on October 29.

The first adjournment was on October 29, when the CJI Gogoi-led bench had posted it on January 4 for appropriate orders. On January 4, a two-judge bench led by the CJI had posted it before “appropriate bench” on January 10. The November 20, 1997 order, which caused Justice Lalit’s recusal, interestingly mentions names of two other advocates — A K Goel and A M Khanwilkar — who went on to become judges of the SC. While Justice Goel retired last year, Justice Khanwilkar is at present an Supreme Court judge.