SC postpones Ayodhya title dispute case hearing to December 5

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday postponed hearing on the Ayodhya Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute to December 5.

The hearing turned acrimonious after litigants from both sides staked claim over the land on which Babri Masjid once stood. Both sides have appealed against the Allahabad high court ruling, which had ordered splitting the land in a 2:1 ratio between the claimants of Ram Mandir and Babri Masjid, respectively.

A bench led by CJI-designate Dipak Misra set the new date for the hearing to have the original judgement and documents, running into 100 volumes, translated into English by the Uttar Pradesh government.

The Sunni Waqf Board, through counsel Anoop George Chaudhari, opposed a rush-rush hearing, citing procedural problems.

“The judgement is over 9,000 pages. The documents run into 90,000 pages. These have to be translated into English,” it said. Some of the exhibits were in Parsi, Arabic, Pali and Sanskrit, it said.

“The lower court records only came to the top court last year,” senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the court. “The documents are in eight different languages,” he said. “These have to be translated. Those who have died in the interim will also have to be replaced by their legal heirs,” he said.

“The court cannot give the impression that it wants to start hearing the case today.” Their plea was backed by senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan. They sought at least four months to have the documents translated, but the bench would not hear of it.

The Hindu Mahasabha, a party to the case, and others said they were ready to argue their case and opposed any attempt to delay the hearing any further.