HYDERABAD: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi has asked PM Narendra Modi to protect the sanctity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act of 1991, in view of the Supreme Court asking the Centre to spell its stand on the Act’s constitutionality.
In a three-page letter dated October 16, Owaisi stated that the law was enacted to protect the character of places of worship as they stood on August 15, 1947, to protect the diversity and pluralism of India.
“When the Law was introduced, it was rightly stated to be a measure necessary to avoid controversies that arise from time to time regarding conversion of places of worship which tend to vitiate the communal atmosphere. It was enacted as a Law with the hope that it would heal the wounds of the past and help restore communal amity and goodwill,” he stated.
Reminding that while deciding the Babri Masjid dispute, the Supreme Court had stated that by enacting 1991 Act was a legislative intervention which preserved “non-retrogression” as an essential feature of our secular values, and an affirmation of the solemn duty which was cast upon the State to preserve and protect the equality of all faiths as an essential constitutional value, a norm which had to status of being a basic feature of the Constitution, Owaisi urged Modi not to let the executive take any view which deviated from the true spirit of constitutionalism as reflected in the Supreme Court’s judgement.