Advani, others part of Babri conspiracy, CBI tells SC
VERDICT RESERVED Says couldn’t file charges earlier due to technical reasons
Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on a petition seeking restoration of conspiracy charges against senior BJP leaders including LK Advani, MM Joshi and Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
The apex court will also decide whether the trial of the VVIPs accused can be transferred from a court in Rae Bareli to Lucknow.
The Central Bureau of Investigation told the court earlier in the day that Advani and 12 others were part of a larger conspiracy to demolish the disputed Babri Masjid, arguing that for charges to be revived against the politicians.
India’s premier probe agency told the top court that Advani and others hadn’t faced conspiracy charges based on technical reasons. The CBI wants the trial to be held in a Lucknow court.
Other than Advani, the accused include senior BJP leadthat ers Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh, and a number of Vishwa Hindu Parishad members.
Hundreds of Hindu zealots scaled the centuries-old Babri Masjid in 1992 and knocked it down with axes, hammers and other tools, triggering a cycle of communal violence that claimed more than 3,000 lives.
The controversial demolition was the culmination of a festering dispute between Muslims and many Hindus, who believe the Mughal emperor Babur razed a temple at the site believed to be the birthplace of Hindu god Ram.
Earlier this month, the SC had hinted that it might revive criminal conspiracy charges against BJP and other Hindu right-wing leaders in the demolition case was dropped by a special trial court in Lucknow on technical grounds.
The top court had on March 21 suggested that the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute was better settled through negotiation than insisting on a judicial pronouncement. The Babri Action Council had rejected the suggestion, while the BJP had welcomed it.
The Allahabad High Court order said that there should be a partition of the disputed Ayodhya land amongst the claimants.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court ordered that the land around the disputed site be divided into three parts -- one for the deity (Ramlala Virajmaan), another for Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu sect and an original litigant in the case, and third for the Muslims.
The Supreme Court had put the Allahabad High court verdict on hold in May 2011, describing it as a “rare judgment whose operation has to be stayed”.