Supreme Court.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Supreme Court on Monday (February 17, 2025) saw the Centre retain a stoic silence through not filing a counter-affidavit putting on record its response to a challenge to the validity of the Places of Worship Act (Special Provisions) Act of 1991, a law that protects the identity and character of religious sites since Independence Day, even as petitioners and intervenors pellet the court with multifarious viewpoints and legal questions.
The case has been pending for over four years. Eight orders of the apex court, spanning from October 2022 to December 2024, variously record the court either granting the government time to file an affidavit or the government promising the court that it was preparing a “comprehensive” one.
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The case, which was due to be heard on February 17, was adjourned to the week commencing the first of April by a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna.
During the short hearing on Monday (February 17, 2025), the court complained about the flood of petitions being filed in the case. It dismissed writ petitions in which notice has still not been issued by the court, giving petitioners liberty to file applications. The Chief Justice said the court would entertain applications which raised new legal grounds.
A galaxy of lawyers like senior advocates Kapil Sibal, A.M. Singhvi, Dushyant Dave, P. Wilson, Raju Ramachandran, Vikas Singh, advocates Kaleeswaram Raj, Ejaz Maqbool, Nizam Pasha among others appeared for the various parties and intervenors which include minority organisations, political parties and eminent individuals. The Centre is represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and advocate Kanu Agrawal.
Mr. Raj said interventions were bound to happen in a case involving a seminal constitutional question. Mr. Singh, appearing for petitioner-advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, pointed out that the court issued notice in the initial petitions as way back as in 2021. “Please direct the Centre to file its counter-affidavit at least in these petitions,” he submitted.
Earlier in the day, senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for one of the petitioners, orally mentioned the case before the two-judge Bench combination of Chief Justice Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar.
However, the third judge on the Bench, Justice K.V. Viswanathan, was unavailable as he was heading another Bench of the apex court.
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“It may not be taken up today,” Chief Justice Khanna had indicated to Ms. Jaising in the morning itself.
Ms. Jaising had reminded the court that legal issues to be addressed in the case were yet to be framed.
Parties in support of the 1991 law described it as a bastion against the mushrooming suits which ultimately intended to pave the way towards retrogression and communal tensions. They highlighted that various local courts, by ordering surveys of mosque premises in civil suits, were in direct violation of Sections 3 of the Act prohibiting the conversion of any place of worship and Section 4, which imposed a positive obligation to maintain the religious character of every place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.
On the other hand, those who have challenged the legality of the 1991 Act blame it for barring Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs from approaching courts to “reclaim” their places of worship which were “invaded” and “encroached” upon by “fundamentalist barbaric invaders”.
On December 12 last year, the apex court had barred civil courts from registering fresh suits or passing orders in pending ones seeking to “re-claim” temples destroyed by Mughal “invaders” in the 16th century. Justice Viswanathan, in that hearing, had indicated that Section 3 was an “effective manifestation or a reiteration of Constitutional principles” and the suits could be objected to on the ground of violation of these basic Constitutional principles even in the absence of the 1991 Act.
Published – February 17, 2025 12:29 pm IST