A MOSQUE IS FOREVER, BABRI PETITIONERS TELLS SC

The Babri mosque’s demolition has not diminished the significance of the land where the religious structure stood, a lawyer representing several Muslim petitioners told the Supreme Court on Friday, seeking review of a 1994 verdict that led to acquisition of the disputed site at Ayodhya.

Senior advocate Rajiv Dhavan told the court that “a mosque is forever and just because it has been destroyed it does not lose its significance”.

Assailing the 1994 Ismail Faruqui judgment during the final hearings of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case, Dhavan said the conclusion of the 1994 verdict that Muslims can pray in the open and the mosque is of no significance for the practice of Islam is not correct and it is not for the courts to decide.

In 1994, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had considered the question of acquisition of religious place by the State and upheld the constitutional validity of the Ayodhya Act, 1993.

“While offer of prayer or worship is a religious practice, its offering at every location where such prayers can be offered would not be an essential or integral part of such religious practice unless the place has a particular significance for that religion so as to form an essential or integral part thereof,” the court had said.

And it is this conclusion that came under attack during the final hearing.

NEW DELHI: