First Ayodhya verdict review petition filed
NEW DELHI: The Nov.9 Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya suffers from “errors apparent on record and warrants a review under Article 137 of the Constitution of India,” said the Jamiat Ulama-ehind in a petition filed on Monday seeking review of the verdict.
The verdict had cleared the way for the construction of a Ram temple at the site over which a dispute had been running for long decades.
Maulana Syed Ashhad Rashidi, president of Jamiat Ulama-e-hilegal heir of original litigant M. Siddiq, said “it must be noted that the petitioner was not challenging the entire judgment.”
He was seeking a review of the verdict on 14 points. The plea argues that the court could not treat the deity as a perpetual minor for the purposes of limitation, could not correct historical wrongs and could not treat historical accounts as conclusive. It also stressed that a finding on title could not be based on archaeological findings.
The five-judge bench had acknowledged “few of the several illegalities” committed by the Hindu parties but “proceeded to condone the said illegal acts and awarded the disputed site to the very party which based its claims on nothing but a series of illegal acts,” the petition said.
The court gave the title suit to the Hindus despite recording their illegal acts of destroying the Babri Masjid’s dome in 1934, leading up to the destruction of the mosque itself in 1992.
The Muslim parties never prayed for the five acres of land that the court allotted for the construction of a mosque, the petitioner said.
Rashidi has submitted that he was “conscious of the sensitive nature of the issue and understands the need to put a quietus to the issue.” “However, it is submitted that there can be no peace without justice,” the petition said.
Five days after the court pronounced the verdict, the working committee of the Jamiat had formed a five-member panel comprising legal experts and religious scholars to look into every aspect of it.
Earlier on Monday, the prominent Muslim body’s chief Maulana Arshad Madani said that a majority of Muslims want the review petition to be filed and the number of those in the community who are against it are very few.
“The main contention in the case was that the mosque was built by destroying a temple. The court said that there was no evidence that the mosque was built after destroying a temple, the title of Muslims therefore was proven, but the final verdict was the opposite. So we are filing a review as the verdict is beyond understanding,” he said.