CJI, 4 probable CJIS on Ayodhya bench

THE BENCH WILL DECIDE ON THURSDAY WHETHER THE DECADES-OLD TITLE DISPUTE WILL BE HEARD ON A DAILY BASIS

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi on Tuesday set up a new five-member constitution bench headed by him, and comprising justices SA Bobde, NV Ramana, UU Lalit and DY Chandrachud to hear the contentious Ram Janmabhoomi-babri Masjid case on Thursday.

The bench — it includes the present chief Justice of India and, potentially, the next four chief justices of India — will on Thursday decide whether the decades-old title dispute will be heard on a daily basis.

The court was originally supposed to hear the case in October, but after this was deferred to January, several right-wing groups affiliated to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have been demanding a law or executive order to facilitate the building of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a recent interview that his government would wait for the courts to rule on the case.

The setting up of a five-judge bench is significant because last year, the Supreme Court rejected the demand of Muslim parties to refer the Ayodhya title dispute to larger bench. That demand came in the context of its own observations in an earlier judgement by five judges in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case.

In that case, the court held that a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam and namaz by Muslims can be offered anywhere, even in the open.

Muslim petitioners in the Ram Janmabhoomi case said that the Ayodhya title dispute could not be decided until that judgement was revisited.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in September ruled that the earlier observation was in the context of acquisition of land.