Two judges for dividing Ayodhya land, but one favoured temple

LUCKNOW - The much-awaited verdict in the decades-old Ayodhya litigation has finally gone in favour of the Ramjanmabhoomi temple. The three-judge special bench was unanimous in declaring that the idol of Lord Ram would remain installed where it was and they have also not disputed that Ayodhya was Ram’s birthplace.

While Justice S.U. Khan and Justice Sudhir Agrawal chose to divide the disputed land into three parts, giving one-third share to the mosque and allowing two-thirds of the property to remain with two different Hindu parties, the third judge, Justice Dharam Veer Sharma, however, ruled that the entire land should go to the temple.

Justice Khan and Justice Agrawal also gave three months for the two parties to work out the modalities of sharing the disputed land, all parties were told to maintain status quo during that period.

Justice Khan has gone a step further by adding: “Even though all the three parties are declared to have one-third share each, however if while allotting exact portions some minor adjustments in the share is to be made, then the same will be made and the adversely affected party may be compensated by allotting some portion of the adjoining land which has been acquired by the central government.”

Significantly, there was no difference of opinion among the judges over the fact that the disputed structure was a mosque.

However, Justice Sharma has expressed his reservations about the mosque being built in accordance with the tenets of Islam. According to him: “The mosque came into existence against the tenets of Islam, therefore it could not be treated as a mosque.”

They were also in agreement on the issue that the idol of Lord Ram was placed under the central dome of the disputed structure on the intervening night of Dec 22-23, 1949.