The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Wakf Board moved the Supreme Court on Tuesday, challenging the Allahabad High Court's judgment in the Ayodhya title dispute, which it said was based on the belief/faith of a section of the Hindu community for which there was no admissible evidence.
In its appeal, the Board said the September 30 judgment held that the place of birth of Lord Ram was below the middle dome of the Babri mosque, though there was no evidence for it. The High Court had wrongly held that a temple had existed on the site in dispute before the Babri Masjid was built, while there was no evidence to prove the existence of any such temple, or demolition thereof, in or around 1528 AD.
The Board faulted the judgment for wrongly holding that Muslims and Hindus were in joint possession of the inner portion of the mosque for decades or more, before 1949.
It was virtually impossible to hold any particular place, let alone the site of the mosque, as the birthplace of Lord Ram, especially when the evidence adduced by the Hindus was that the birth took place more than nine lakh years ago. But no such finding could be given under the law that the three-domed structure of the mosque, or any portion of it, was the birth place of Lord Ram.
The Board maintained that the mosque in question was constructed in 1528 AD on vacant land, and it was liable to be treated as owned by Mughal Emperor Babar as it was established from historical evidence that he was the owner of all land during the entire Mughal period.
It said all parties (except a defendant) did not dispute the construction of the building during the regime of Babar, and no historian witness produced by the Hindu side disputed this proposition either. As such, there was no justification for giving the contrary finding and disputing the genuineness of the inscriptions relied upon by the historians all along.
‘Equally protected'
The Board said the High Court failed to appreciate the fact that the belief/faith of all persons (Hindus, Muslims and others) were equally protected under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution, and the rights and title of the disputed mosque could not be decided on the basis of belief/faith of one party.
It prayed that the judgment be quashed, and its operation stayed till the appeal was disposed of.
