The Central Shia Waqf Board on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging a 1946 trial court order ruling Babri Masjid to be a Sunni property.
This comes a day after the Board filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court laying its claim on the ownership of Babri Masjid. It had suggested to the court that another mosque, built in a Muslim-dominated area at a “reasonable distance” from the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi, should replace the demolished Babri Masjid.
In a special leave petition, the Board argued that Emperor Babar, a Sunni, had no ownership of the Babri Masjid. In fact, he had only stayed for five to six days at Ayodhya.
The Board said there are “local affirmations that Babar came to Ayodhya in 1528 AD and halted there for a week and it was during his regime that the Janamsthan temple was destroyed and on its site a mosque was built using largely the materials of the old structure.”
The Shia Board said the trial ignored the fact that a Shia noble in Babar’s court, Abdul Mir Baqi, “created” the Babri Masjid with his own money. This made Baqi, and not Babar, the wakif of Babri Masjid. The trial court itself, the Shia Board argues, mentions that Baqi’s successors were mutawallis of the mosque.
“Even if the king orders for building the mosque, the wakif is the one who actually creates the waqf by dedicating it to the God. In the instant case, admittedly, the mosque was built by Abdul Mir Baqi.”
