NEW DELHI: The CBI ought to hold itself responsible for failing to follow even basic norms while bringing evidence on record, which led to the acquittal of all 32 accused in the Babri masjid demolition case.
Special Judge S K Yadav in his 2,300-page ruling said photocopies and not originals of the statements made by some accused persons were submitted, which cannot be relied on.
Also, audio cassettes were tampered with and not sealed. Besides, negatives of photographs were not submitted.
“All the speeches, clippings of newspapers which were not testified, photographs don’t show an iota of evidence that the accused persons hatched the conspiracy together,” the judge concluded.
Dissecting the submitted speeches, he said, the recordings of slogans raised by a specific accused did not correlate with the voice samples of that person.
On the prosecution witnesses claiming that some of the accused raised the slogan ek dhakka aur do Babri masjid tod do (give one more push to demolish Babri masjid), no record or matching voice samples were presented, he pointed out.
Regarding the statements submitted by the CBI, the verdict said the testimonies of the witnesses recorded under 161 CrPC and what was said in court do not match.
Also, none of the witnesses took direct name of the accused persons, it added.
CBI flip-flop in Babri probe
The CBI, which took over the investigation in 1993, has flip-flopped during the course of the trial against leaders like LK Advani, MM Joshi, Murli Manohar Joshi and others.
The case file the first charge sheet in 1993 which mentioned a secret meeting at Bajrang Dal leader Vinay Katiyar’s residence, in which Advani was present and the plan for the demolition was finalised a day before the structure was razed.
In 1996, the CBI filed a supplementary charge sheet before a court which found that there was prima facie evidence to try Advani and other leaders. The order also added charges of criminal conspiracy against them.
The order was challenged by Advani and Uma Bharti.
The agency then approached the UP government seeking to fix the lapses in the charge sheet in 2001. However, the state government refused to entertain the petition and criminal conspiracy charges against the leaders were dropped.
In 2003, the CBI filed yet another charge sheet before the Allahabad High Court in which again the probe agency sought revival of the charges against Advani and others. The court observed that there was not enough evidence against Advani to try him and discharged the BJP leader.
The agency moved the Supreme Court in 2012 against the Allahabad High Court order.
The top court in 2017 reinstated the criminal conspiracy charges and ordered the trial to be resumed. In 2020, the apex court sets August 31 deadline for completion of the trial.