Hindu party allowed to file note on prayer rights

A COUNSEL FOR ‘NIRVANI AKAHARA’ SAID HIS CLIENT ‘MISCALCULATED’ THE TIME GRANTED FOR FILING THE WRITTEN NOTE ON NARROWING DOWN THE ISSUES

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Tuesday allowed ‘Nirvani Akahara’, one of the Hindu parties in the decades-old case of Ram Janmbhoomi-babri Masjid land dispute in Ayodhya, to file a written note seeking the “right to manage worship of the deity” as ‘shebait’ (devotee) at the site.

A counsel for ‘Nirvani Akahara’ mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and said his client “miscalculated” the 3-day time granted by the court for filing the written note on moulding of relief — narrowing down the issues raised during the hearing — and was now seeking the nod for filing it with the apex court’s registry.

“You file it now,” the bench, which also comprised Justices S A Bobde and S A Nazeer, told senior advocate Jaideep Gupta who was representing ‘Nirvani Akhara’.

Both ‘Nirmohi Akahara’ and its rival ‘Nirvani Akahara’ are seeking right to manage and offer ‘puja’ at the birthplace of deity ‘Ram Lalla Virajman’ at the site.

While ‘ Nirmohi Akahara’ had filed a lawsuit in 1959 seeking the right as ‘shebait’, ‘Nirvani Akahara’ has been made a party (defendant) in two separate lawsuits filed by Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Wakf Board and deity ‘Ram Lalla’, through next friend Deoki Nandan Agrwal, in 1961 and 1989 respectively. “It is humbly submitted that none of t he parties (amongst) Hindus in the aforementioned suits have made claims...for shebaitship right and are instead claiming either as the owner or as a next friend (of deity) ...and thereby seeking to build a temple at the disputed structure.

The Akahara has sought a direction that it be handed over the “right to manage the worship of the deity of the Ram Janambhoomi/disputed structure as the ‘pujari’ and/or ‘shebait’ of the deity”. During the hearing, it had said that Mahant Abhiram Das, now deceased, of Nirvani Akahara was the priest at the site in 1949 and he was also made an accused in the FIR lodged for alleged placing of idols below the central dome of the disputed site on the night of December 22-23, 1949.