A mosque is forever, Babri petitioners to SC

NEW DELHI: The Babri mosque’s demolition has not diminished the significance of the land where the religious structure stood, a lawyer representing several Muslim petitioners told the Supreme Court on Friday, seeking review of a 1994 verdict that led to acquisition of the disputed site at Ayodhya.

Senior advocate Rajiv Dhavan told the court that “a mosque is forever and just because it has been destroyed it does not lose its significance”.

Assailing the 1994 Ismail Faruqui judgment during the final hearings of the Babri MasjidRam Janmabhoomi case, Dhavan said the conclusion of the 1994 verdict that Muslims can pray in the open and the mosque is of no significance for the practice of Islam is not correct and it is not for the courts to decide.

In 1994, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had considered the question of acquisition of religious place by the State and upheld the constitutional validity of the Ayodhya Act, 1993.

“While offer of prayer or worship is a religious practice, its offering at every location where such prayers can be offered would not be an essential or integral part of such religious practice unless the place has a particular significance for that religion so as to form an essential or integral part thereof,” the court had said. And it is this conclusion that came under attack during the final hearing.

Dhavan said that the 2010 Allahabad High court verdict that ruled a three-way division of the disputed land was under the shadow of the Faruqui verdict.

Dhavan questioned, “What was the larger national purpose in acquiring the 2.77 acre dispute area? Was it Ram Janambhoomi or Ram temple or the thing stated in the BJP’s white paper”?

Moreover, if the disputed site is the exact birth place of Lord Ram it is something the courts cannot decide, he said.

“The people who destroyed the mosque were not miscreants but BJP leaders and what led to the demolition was not the proper political attitude but the problem,” Dhavan added. “There is a fear in the Muslim community that what happened to the Babari mosque can happen elsewhere.”

After hearing the arguments, the three-judge bench led said it would consider the plea to refer the matter at a later date. The case will be heard on April 6.