The Supreme Court will, on Wednesday, resume hearing the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case to decide ownership of a plot of land measuring 2.77 acres in Ayodhya. A special bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer will take up 13 appeals against the judgment of the Allahabad High Court, which ruled a three-way split of the disputed plot in 2010.
During the last hearing on February 8, the top court had said that it will treat the case purely as a land dispute and clarified that it never intended to hear the case on a daily basis. The bench had asked the parties involved in the dispute to file English translations of some documents and vernacular books that have been relied upon in the case within two weeks.
The Allahabad High Court had divided the disputed plot among the Sunni Waqf Board, a Hindu organisation called the Nirmohi Akhara, and Ram Lalla or the infant Ram, who is represented by the Hindu Mahasabha.
On December 6, 1992, lakhs of karsevaks demolished the Babri Masjid claiming that the land on which the mosque stood was the birthplace of Ram. The Sangh Parivar hopes to reconstruct a Ram temple at the spot. The demolition of the masjid had triggered communal riots across the country.
The movement to demolish the mosque was led by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. BJP leader LK Advani piloted one of many roadshows across India in 1990 to galvanise support to have a temple built at the site of the mosque.
In May 2017, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court granted bail to LK Advani and other BJP leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
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