Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan on Tuesday indicated that his side is preparing a contempt petition to be filed in the Supreme Court as certain sections are trying to “muddy the waters” in the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi dispute even as the court is hearing the case.
“While the case is being argued, people should restrain themselves. I would caution all of us not to muddy the waters,” Mr. Dhavan, appearing for some of the Muslim parties who have moved the Supreme Court, submitted before a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra.
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Special status
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The court is hearing arguments on a plea to refer the question whether a mosque has no “unique or special status” and is not an essential part of the practice of Islam and namaz to a Constitution Bench.
In 1994, the Supreme Court observed that “Muslims can offer prayer anywhere, even in open.”
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Land acquisition
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The 24-year-old Ismail Faruqui versus Union of India case dealt with the acquisition of 67.703 acres of land in Ayodhya after the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. The constitutionality of the ‘Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act of 1993’ was under scanner.
The government justified the acquisition as a step to promote harmony. But the Muslim parties suspected the 1993 law as a veiled attempt to “perpetuate the consequences of the demolition of the mosque.”
It was in this background that the Supreme Court observed in 1994 that a mosque cannot restrict the State’s sovereign power to acquire land for an “undoubted national purpose.”
Moreover, the court went on to distinguish between places of worship with “particular significance,” which have to be treated reverentially. The others were classified as “ordinary places of worship,” subject to acquisition.
A quarter of a century later, the Muslim parties have challenged the rationale of the 1994 ruling.