Supreme Court stays Ayodhya verdict till Sep 28 (Night Lead)

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Thursday ordered an interim stay till Sep 28 on the pronouncement of the Ayodhya verdict by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.

The high court was due to deliver its verdict on the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi title suit Friday.

An apex court bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice H.L. Gokhale, while issuing notice to all the parties to the title suit, asked Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati to be present in the court when the case is heard Sep 28.

The ruling followed a petition of retired bureaucrat Ramesh Chandra Tripathi for postponing the high court verdict till at least the end of the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games. It also sought the court’s direction to the parties to explore the possibilities of an

out-of-court amicable settlement.

However, there was a divergence of views on the issue in the apex court bench.

Pronouncing the order, Justice Raveendran said that one member of the bench was of the view that the special leave petition be dismissed and the other was of the view that notice be issued to parties and the high court decision be stayed.

Justice Raveendran said that according to the convention, whenever one member of the bench wanted notice to be issued to related parties and another member wanted to dismiss the petition, notice is issued.

When the court was told that one of the three high court judges who have to pronounce the high court verdict was retiring Sep 30, the apex court said that there were provisions in the law to deal with such exigencies.

Appearing for petitioner Tripathi, senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi said that the country was already heaped with problems and there was hardly any scope for adding one more to the list.

He referred to the floods in various states, the Jammu and Kashmir imbroglio and the Commonwealth Games, indicating that these issues needed to be addressed on priority.

He said that the title suit was not just a matter of a dispute between two parties over a private property. The case involved the religious sentiments of the people.

He said that a suggestion by the apex court of a mediated solution would have a soothing impact on the contesting parties.

At this, Justice Raveendran said that umpteen number of such opportunities were afforded to both the parties but without any result.

He expressed surprise over both the Central Sunni Waqf Board and respondent Mahant Ramakrishna Paramhans were together in opposing the plea for deferring the high court verdict.

While saying that existing problems could not be the ground for deferring the verdict, Justice Raveendran asked the senior counsel: “Why (do) you think that people are so immature that they will not accept the verdict?”

“It (such thinking) is unfortunate,” Justice Raveendran noted.

When senior counsel for the contending parties to the suit, A. Chaudhary and Ravi Shankar Prasad, told the court that there was zero scope for a negotiated and amicable settlement of the dispute, Justice Gokhale said: “You are a party to the dispute but have never suffered the consequences. It is the common man who is not a party who suffers.”

“You are aware of the history. You are part of it,” Justice Gokhale said, adding: “If we don’t grant this prayer and there are consequences then you will be the first to blame us.”

Tripathi has challenged the high court order rejecting his plea for deferring the pronouncement of the verdict so that there could be some mediation for an amicable settlement of the dispute.

Tripathi’s petition was turned down by the three-judge special bench of the high court last week. While two judges S.U. Khan and Sudhir Agrawal rejected the application, the third judge, Dharam Veer Sharma, allowed the plea, following which Tripathi chose to move the apex court.

The high court also fined Tripathi Rs.50,000.

Referring to high court Justice Dharam Veer Sharma’s statement that he was not consulted by the other two judges at the time of passing the order dismissing the plea for the deferment of the verdict, the petitioner said that no prejudice would be caused by deferring the verdict.