This article is written by Gauraw Kumar, from BVP-New Law College, Pune. In this article, he covers the facts, historical background, issues raised and the Judgement of an important case “M Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors.”, popularly known as “Ayodhya Dispute case”.

Introduction 

India is a unique country which is adopting advancement rapidly and is also known for its diversity at the same time. In India, people have strong feelings and respect for their religion and religious ceremonies. It is good as well as bad for them also. Normally, we think that we should be loyal towards our god, respect our religion. But at the same time, politicians take advantage of these feelings. They use to connect their policy and agenda with religion and try to influence people to vote. Politicians use the concept of “Divide and rule” by influencing and manipulating people with the help of their religious feelings and emotions towards their god. We have also heard about religious violence. It is not a hidden phenomenon in a country like India. India has adopted the principle of secularism in the Constitution in order to preserve, protect and maintain the culture and traditions of all the religions. Notwithstanding, varying mindsets and different beliefs of people leads to disharmony in the society which further leads to violence and disturbance. Some disputes are very prolonged which require trial in the court of law. One such dispute arose in the case of M Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors, popularly known as Ayodhya Dispute Case. You may also hear the slogan and song “Mandir wahi banayenge” in your society. Now we will try to discuss history, background, issues raised and verdict passed in this case.

M Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors

This case is popularly known by the name of “Ayodhya Dispute Case”. This case witnessed all the Prime Minister of Independent India. This dispute is a social, religious, historical and political debate in India which centred on a plot of land in the city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. This was a very prolonged case and finally, the Supreme Court passed a verdict for case on dated 9th November 2019.

Facts of the Case

It was the story of an Ayodhya city which cohabits both, Hindu (who claim birthplace of Lord Rama) and Muslim (who see it as a city which locates Babri Mosque which was built by first Mughal emperor, Babur in 1528). First religious violence in Ayodhya occurred in the year of 1850 over a nearby mosque at Hanuman Garhi. In this process, the Babri Mosque was attacked by Hindus. Local Hindus always demand occasionally for the possession of the land where Babri mosque was established and they should be allowed to build a temple on that land. They believed that the Babri mosque was built by breaking a Hindu Temple. But, their demand was always refused by the Colonial Government. On 22nd December 1949, an offshoot of Hindu Mahasabha called Akhil Bharatiya Ramayana Mahasabha (ABRM) organised 9 days continuous recitation of Ramcharitmanas. At the end of which, Hindu activists broke into the mosque and established idols of Rama and Sita inside. Jawaharlal Nehru ordered to remove idols but the same was refused by a local official, K.K.K. Nair (known for his Hindu nationalist connections), claiming it would lead to communal riots. The Police locked the gates and entry was banned for both, Hindu as well as Muslim. Priests were allowed to enter for daily worship as idols were present inside and Mosque had been converted into a de facto temple. Both Sunni Waqf Board and AMRM filed a civil suit in local court claiming their religious rights on site.

The legal battle over Ayodhya began in 1950 when a petition was first filed by Gopal Singh Visharad, who was refused entry. He was Ayodhya secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha, an organization formed to oppose the secular principle of the Congress party. The court dragged on the issue for almost a decade and in 1959 the Nirmohi Akhara filed another complaint claiming that the area should be in their possession. In response to the above-mentioned lawsuits, the Sunni Central Waqf Council filed a counter-request in 1961. The Council was established by Indian law to protect and preserve Muslim religious and cultural sites.

Issues raised

The issue of this case revolved around the possession of land traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Lord Rama and the history of Babri Mosque.

One of the major issues of this case was:-

Whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to construct a mosque by Babur?

Written submission of parties to the case

After the long hearing of 14 days, the Supreme Court has given 3 days to all the parties of this case to give written submission and clear what are they actually praying. Following are the summary of written statements by different parties to this case:-

Nirmohi Akhara

• In the event that the verdict comes in favour of one of the Hindu parties, the Akhara should retain the right to serve the deity.
• The authorization to build a Ram temple on the disputed site and Nirmohi Akhara should be authorized to manage the premises once the temple is built.
• If the court decides to confirm the verdict of the High Court of Allahabad in 2010 and the Muslim parties declare that they will not do any construction on the disputed site, the court should ask the Muslim parties to give their share of the land to the Hindu parties. on a long-term lease so that a large Ram temple can be built. (The verdict of the High Court of Allahabad had divided the disputed land into three parts: the Sunni Waqf Council, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla)
• The court should order the government to provide land to the Muslim side to build a mosque outside the conflict area.

Ram Lalla Virajman

• The written submission on behalf of Ram Lalla Virajman says that the court should give all of the lands in dispute to Ram Lalla.
• The statement stated that no part of the disputed land should be given to the Nirmohi Akhara or the Muslim parties.

Ram Janambhoomi Punar Sudhar Samiti

• Only a Ram temple should be allowed to be built on the disputed site in Ayodhya.
• Once the temple is built, a trust must be formed to manage it.

Gopal Singh Visharad

• Gopal Singh Visharad, whose ancestors would have performed rituals on the temple site for centuries, argued that it is his constitutional right to offer prayers to Ram Janmabhoomi.
• His statement said that there should be no compromise in the Ram Janmabhoomi case.

Sunni Waqf Board

• The Commission has stated that it wishes to obtain the same remedy as that invoked at the hearings. During the hearings, Commission counsel, Rajeev Dhawan, requested that the Babri Masjid regain its form before being destroyed on December 6, 1992.

Hindu Mahasabha

• The Supreme Court is expected to form a trust to oversee the management of the Ram temple to be built on the disputed site in Ayodhya.
• The Supreme Court should appoint an administrator to deal with this trust.

Shia Waqf Board

• During their relief casting before the High Court of Allahabad, they said that the Muslim parties should give up their claim on the disputed land and hand it over to the Hindu parties to build a Ram temple.
• In a written submission, the Shia Waqf board of directors said that a Ram temple should be built on the disputed site in Ayodhya.
• He stated that the Waqf Shiite council is the lawful owner of the disputed land, not the Waqf Sunni council.
• The land that was given to the Sunni Waqf Council in the High Court order should now be given to the Hindu parties.

Judgement

The bench of five judges of the Supreme Court heard the litigation cases on the title from August to October 2019. On 9th November 2019, the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, announced its verdict; he quashed the previous ruling and ruled that the land belonged to the government on the basis of the tax records. He further ordered that the land be turned over to a trust for the construction of the Hindu temple. He also ordered the government to donate another five-acre piece of land to the Waqf Sunni Council to build the mosque.

Following are the top ten points that were highlighted in the Judgement of this case:-

• The Supreme Court granted the entire 2.77 acres of disputed land in Ayodhya to the deity Ram Lalla.
• The Supreme Court ordered the government of Central and Uttar Pradesh to allocate 5-acre alternative land to Muslims in a prominent location to build a mosque.
• The court asked the Center to consider giving some sort of representation to Nirmohi Akhara for setting up a trust. Nirmohi Akhara was the third party to the Ayodhya conflict.
• The Supreme Court rejected the plea of Nirmohi Akhara, who sought to control all of the disputed lands, claiming that it was its custodian.
• The Supreme Court ordered the Union government to create a trust in 3 months for the construction of the Ram Mandir on the disputed site where Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992.
• The Supreme Court said that the structure below the disputed site in Ayodhya was not an Islamic structure, but the Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) did not establish whether a temple was demolished to build a mosque.
• The court also declared that the Hindus regard the disputed site as the birthplace of Lord Ram while the Muslims also say the same thing about the site of Babri Masjid.
• The court also declared that the Hindus’ belief that Lord Rama was born on the disputed site where Babri Masjid was once, cannot be challenged.
• The Supreme Court also declared that the 1992 demolition of the 16th-century Babri Masjid mosque was a violation of the law.
• While reading its judgment, the Supreme Court declared that the UP’s Waqf Central Sunni Council had not established its cause in the Ayodhya dispute and that the Hindus had established that they were in possession of the outer courtyard of the site in dispute.

A brief timeline from the occurrence of the dispute to the end of the dispute

1. 6th December 1992:- The Babri mosque was demolished by a gathering of nearly 200,000 Karsevaks. Community riots across India followed.
2. 16th December 1992:- Ten days after the demolition, the Congressional government at the Center, led by PV Narasimha Rao, set up a commission of inquiry under the leadership of Judge Liberhan.
3. 6th August 2019:- The 5-judge constitutional bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, of the Supreme Court, began the final hearing on the case.
4. 16th October 2019:- The final hearing before the Supreme Court ends. The bench reserved the final judgment. The court gave the parties to the conflict three days to file written notes on the “shaping of the remedy” or on the issues on which the court must decide.
5. 9th November 2019:- Final judgment rendered. The Supreme Court ordered the surrender of the land to a trust for the construction of the Temple of Ram. It also ordered the government to donate 5 acres of land within the city limits of Ayodhya to the Sunni Waqf Council to build a mosque.
6. 12th December 2019:- All petitions for review of the verdict dismissed by the Supreme Court.

Conclusion

This case is important because this is a prolonged case in the history of the Indian Judiciary and witnessed all the Prime Minister of India, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi. Finally, this dispute was resolved on dated 9th November 2019. In this Judgement, the Supreme Court tried to approach this case in a harmonious way and tried to establish a balance between both the religion. The Supreme Court granted the entire 2.77 acres of disputed land in Ayodhya to the deity Ram Lalla. The Supreme Court ordered the government of Central and Uttar Pradesh to allocate 5-acre alternative land to Muslims in a prominent location to build a mosque.

According to me, we should focus on the real issue which led to the development of a country like poverty, unemployment, agriculture etc. We should not come in the religious emotions trap of politicians. Politicians distract us by raising these religious issues and use the concept of “Divide and rule” in order to win elections. This case is one of the examples because this dispute was a burning agenda in previous elections of Lok sabha.

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