Apex court’s Ayodhya decision welcomed by all (Roundup)

NEW DELHI - Political parties across the board as well as religious groups Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court dismissing a petition seeking to defer the Allahbad High Court judgment on title suits in the Ayodhya dispute, saying the decision would end the uncertainty.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Prakash Javadekar said all parties to the dispute wanted an early decision on the matter.

“We welcome the decision of the Supreme Court paving the way for the Allahabad High Court to give its judgment,” Javadekar said.

He said the party had already appealed to people to maintain calm.

Hailing the apex court verdict, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said his party had always maintained that the solution to the dispute should be found through talks or the decision of the court should be respected.

“Everyone should wait for the judgment of the high court,” he said.

Answering queries, Dwivedi said it was the social responsibility of every citizen to maintain peace and harmony.

“Everybody should abide by the verdict of the court,” he said, adding that the parties to the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi title suit case can move the Supreme Court after the high court verdict.

Asked about the verdict coming close to the Commonwealth Games, Dwivedi said: “It is a coincidence.”

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat also welcomed the apex court verdict and said there could only be a judicial resolution to the Ayodhya dispute.

“The verdict should be pronounced now. It should be respected by all,” Karat said.

Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said the government had “always lent support for compromise” in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute and that “nobody wants uncertainty prolonged”.

Moily said said he was confident that “the people of India are mature enough to maintain equilibrium”.

“Anybody can come to the Supreme Court. As far as the government is concerned, we have maintained a secular, impartial stand and will continue to do so,” the minister said.

The Darul Uloom Deoband, one of the country’s leading Muslim seminaries based in Uttar Pradesh, told IANS that any delay in pronouncing the verdict would have “only vitiated communal peace and harmony and generated an atmosphere of mistrust”.

“The issue has lingered on for the last 60 years… it is time the matter is sorted out,” said Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, a teacher at the seminary.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) also reacted positively.

Board member and legal convenor Zafaryab Jilani said: “We are hopeful that the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court will be able to deliver the judgment by Oct 1.”

“This will be good for all,” he said.

Maulana Niaz Ahmed Farooqi of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, one of the oldest Muslim organisations in the sub-continent, said the Supreme Court decision would help “in doing away with the uncertainty that hovers around the dispute”.

“Lingering on the dispute would have made it more complicated… People are prepared for the high court decision and they are ready to hear it,” Farooqi said.

Lauding the apex court move, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) spokesman Ram Madhav said the whole country was looking forward to the Allahabad High Court judgment.

“There was a deliberate process to defer the judicial process. The petitioner had no locus standi,” Madhav said, adding that the apex court had done what was appropriate.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia Tuesday dismissed the petition of former bureaucrat Ramesh Chandra Tripathi for deferring the high court verdict on the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi dispute.

Tripathi had also sought the court’s direction to the parties to explore the possibility of an out-of-court amicable settlement.

Acting on a petition by Tripathi, the apex court last week ordered an interim stay on the pronouncement of the title suit verdict by the high court.