HEARING ON TITLE TO BEGIN

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to refer to a larger bench its 1994 verdict for a review over its “questionable observation” that “mosque is not an essential part of the practice of Islam”, paving the way for the apex court to hear the politically sensitive main Ayodhya title suit from October 29.

The apex court said now the civil suit on land dispute will be heard by a newly constituted threejudge bench on October 29 as Justice Dipak Misra will retire on October 2 as the CJI.

Holding that the earlier observation was made in the limited context of “land acquisition” during the hearing of the Ayodhya case, the top court in a 2-1 verdict made it clear it will not have any bearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute whose outcome will be eagerly awaited ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The judgement was welcomed by the RSS and the BJP as well as Muslim groups for different reasons.

A Muslim group had assailed the observation made by a five-judge Constitution bench in 1994 in the Ismail Faruqui case and had sought its reconsideration on the grounds it had affected the decision of the Allahabad High Court in the land dispute and may affect the pending appeals.

The majority verdict by CJI Dipak Misra and Justice Ashok Bhushan declined the plea of M. Siddiq, one of the original litigants who has died and is being represented through his legal heir, that the matter be referred to a larger bench.

Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, the third judge, who dissented with the majority view, in a stinging judgement said the question whether mosque was essential part of the religion cannot be decided without a “detailed examination of the beliefs, tenets and practice of the faith” and favoured reconsideration of the issue to a larger bench.