NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday granted centre further time to clear its stand in pleas challenging the constitutionality of provisions of Places of Worship Act, 1991, (“act”) a parliamentary law that protects the identity and character of religious places as on August 15, 1947.
The provisions of the act as per section 5 however do not apply to the place or place of worship commonly known as Ram Janma Bhumi-Babri Masjid situated in Ayodhya and also to any pleas suit, appeal or other proceedings related to the place or place of worship.
On being informed that the centre was “consulting” and the “process was going on”, a bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha agreed to post the plea after February.
Noting Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal’s contention regarding the maintainability of the pleas, the bench clarified that the same will be considered first.
“This is legislation in terms of which certain observations were made in Ram Janmabhoomi's verdict. Such pleas can’t be in the form of PIL qua judgement of the court. How can you review the judgement? There cannot be PIL qua an act. Please note my preliminary objections,” Sibal had argued.
Considering his submissions, the bench said that the objections pertaining to maintainability will be heard first. “Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal seeks to raise preliminary objections to the maintainability of the pleas. They will be heard before the plea is considered,” the bench said in its order.
Questioning the centre’s act of delay in filing a comprehensive affidavit, Advocate Vrinda Grover for AIMPLB and Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind said that the religious characters of Kashi and Mathura were being sought to be altered. “Litigation of all manner is taking place. Religious character is being sought to be altered,” she added.
Urging the bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud, SG Tushar Mehta had earlier also sought time. Mehta had said that the issue would need “greater consultation” at a particular level.
Earlier also a bench of former CJI UU Lalit, Justices SR Bhat and Ajay Ratogi had granted the government two weeks to file its response.
Urging the court to declare sections 2, 3 which criminalise ‘conversion’ of a place of worship for one religion or sect into another and section 4 which says worship will be determined as it was on August 15th 1947, the plea argued that Act barred judicial review which is a basic structure of the Constitution and cannot be taken away. The petition contended that the choice of date adversely impacts Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists.
"Section 2,3,4 not only offend the right to pray, practice and propagate religion (Article 25), right to manage maintain administer places of worship-pilgrimage (Article 26), right to conserve culture (Article 29) but also contrary to State’s duty to protect historic places (Article 49) and preserve religious cultural heritage (Article 51A)," the petition filed by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay said.
A similar plea by Devkinandan Thakur while echoing the same “notions” of historic wrong said, “In 1192 the invader Mohammad Ghori after defeating Prithviraj Chauhan established Islamic rule and foreign rule continued up to August 15, 1947… therefore, any cutoff date could be the date on which India was conquered by Gori and the religious places of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs as were existing in 1192 have to be restored with the same glory.”
Opposing the pleas challenging the validity of the Act, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) contended that the Act did not violate any cultural rights of any section of the people and was based on the fundamental features of the Constitution which were unamendable. Seeking impleadment in pleas by Vishwa Bhadra Purjari Purohit Mahasangh, AIMPLB said that hearing the petitions challenging the validity of the law would only create problems on the ground and alleged that the litigants had a “political agenda”.
In March 2021, the top court issued a notice to the Union Ministries of Home, Law and Culture on the petition filed by Mr Upadhyay against the various provisions of the 1991 Act.