Justice U U Lalit recuses from Ayodhya case, new SC bench to begin hearing on January 29

A new five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court will hear the Ayodhya title dispute case on another day as one of the judges, U U Lalit, recused himself from the case.

Justice UU Lalit, who was part of a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, opted out of the hearing when senior lawyer Rajeev Dhawan who appeared on behalf of a Muslim party pointed out that he had appeared in a related case in 1994.

The bench, also comprising Justices S A Bobde, N V Ramana and D Y Chandrachud, noted the submissions made by Dhavan even as Harish Salve, who appeared on behalf of the Hindu parties, argued there was no need for the judge to recuse himself.


Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi announced that a reconstituted bench will on January 29 pass orders on the date and schedule of hearing.

Dhavan further submitted that there was need for a judicial order to set up a five-judge Constitution bench, but CJI Gogoi ruled that this was a fit case for a five-judge Constitution bench considering the facts and circumstances of the matter and the voluminous records pertaining to it.

The case has been pending before the apex court since 2010 after the Allahabad High Court in the same year passed a judgment dividing the disputed site among three parties -- one for deity (Ramlala Virajmaan), another for Nirmohi Akhara—a Hindu sect, and third to the original litigant in the case for the Muslims. The two sides in the dispute appealed to the top court seeking sole claim over the land.

The Allahabad high court judgement, along with additional annexures, had run into 8,000 pages. The deposition of the witnesses totalled 2,886 pages and 257 documents were exhibited.

The apex court said its registry will physically examine the records of the case stored in 50 sealed trunks. Some of the documents are in Sanskrit, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Persian and Gurmukhi that need to be translated.
( with PTI inputs)