Ayodhya Verdict : A Controversial Judgement ?

Ayodhya judgement was noted for it begin long drawn and was found to be driven with lot of emotions and religious sentiments coming into play ,with episodes where any bit of coherence was almost impossible to find. This movement that was motivated with the concept of Ram Janmabhoomi at the forefront sparked with the demolishment of the Babri Masjid in 1922 was labelled to be an embodiment of the "annexations propaganda of faith"and this judgement was noted for it begin long -rightly so.

In 16th century ,the Babri Masjid was built during the reign of the Mughal Emperor , Babur. It was locally believed that Babur's Generals demolished a temple that existed in that  site before the Masjid was constructed.

Many academicians have argued that local traditions, tales and other beliefs should not be taken into consideration while a decision was made with regards to important matters of land acquisition like this.

The Masjid was unlawfully demolished by the Kar Sevaks in December ,1992, based on the above mentioned local belief.

The local belief regarding Lord Ram's birth place, was upheld by a 3-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court in 2010.The High Court had given judgement to an equal partition of the site occupied by the demolished Masjid .

In the subsequent year, upon appeals by the Sunni Wafq Board and multiple other parties to the case appealed to the Supreme Court Allahabad High Court's order was subsequently stayed.

It was fixed by the end of 2017 that February 2018 would mark the commencement of the final hearing on this case. Another interesting aspect of the case was the importance it laid on documents in Persian and Arabic form 16th century  which provide to be the few sources of information with regards to the occupants of the site which has been a topic of dispute for the more than 2 decades now.

Charting a Timeline:

• 16th century - Construction of Babri masjid

• In 1994, there was a contention raised before the with regards to the acquisition of land in and around Babri Masjid.it was subsequently ruled by the apex court that Mosques were not essential or integral to Islamic religious practises. It was also added that Namaz could offer even in the open and that it was not necessary that it had to the open and that it was not necessary that it had to be in a mosque.

• In 2010 , it was decided by the Allahabad High Court in a 2010 ruling that the land was to be divided into 3 parts and this done in a bid to settle this land title dispute case. However, this decision was not welcomed  by the parties involved in the Ram Mandir -Babri Masjid Case and hence was further appealed before the Supreme Court to reach finality with regards to the issue at hand.This appeal before the Supreme Court was heard by a 3-judge bench headed by Ex Chief Justice  of India (CJI),Dipak Mishra and the issues discussed in the 1994 ruling ,spout up,once again.

The Appellant parties to the case requested the case to be referred to a larger bench in order to reconsider the 1994 ruling .However ,this request was not taken into consideration and was refused by the Supreme court .In support to this stand taken by the supreme court, they mentioned that 1994 ruling was not to influence the land title dispute as the later was mainly in the context of acquisition of the land and nothing more.

It also found that the proposal to build a Ram Mandir at the Ayodhya site was an important promise made by BJP in their election manifesto .whatever the decision of the Supreme Court was to be ,it was predicted that it would be quite decisive in either providing or not providing sufficient support to the building of the Ram Mandir at the specified site.

The 2010 decision of the Allahabad High Court which voted for a tripartite division of the land under dispute was not satisfactory to all the parties .The whole dispute boils down to one single question as to whether the Babri Masjid was built over a temple which was previously dedicated to Lord Ram.

Ayodhya case in the Supreme Court's 2019 Landmark Judgement  and is also the 2nd longest hearing ever went for 40 days .

Rapid Action Force Personnel have been deployed in the state to prevent any out break of violence .Prohibitory orders  have been issued in Ayodhya considering the safety and security of Ayodhya Section 144 in The Code of Criminal procedure ,1973 which is power to issue order in urgent cases of nuisance of apprehended danger.

The Archaeological Survey of India did not say anything  the demolition or about a Ram Temple .It only said something have been found which resemble the temple of Northern India.

The final judgement in the Supreme court was declared on 9 November 2019,the land was handed to the Ram temple.It also ordered the government to give 5 acres of land inside Ayodhya city limits to sunni waqf Board for building a Mosque.