It seems like the Supreme Court is finally expediting the Ram Mandir case as on Thursday it made clear that it cannot give even one extra day to the parties to complete their arguments in the Ayodhya land dispute case. The five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, reiterated the need to complete arguments by October 18, the deadline set last week upon the consent of both the parties. The Bench has been hearing the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute on a daily day-to-day fast-tracked basis. Thursday was the 32nd day of arguments in the matter.
Earlier, the court had formed a panel under former SC judge FM Kalifulla to settle the issue amicably through mediation. The process went on for nearly four months without bearing any fruit, the panel had renowned names like Sriram Panchu, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravishankar etc, but they all could not come to a final settlement.
It is interesting to note that Congress, along with the Left and the Islamist parties like the AIMIM, have long tried to undermine the legal process underway in the SC on building the Ram Mandir. First was the use of collaborative fiction with the help of vindictive media in 2017 to allege that Judge BH Loya’s death from cardiac arrest was, in fact, a stinging murder plot to save BJP party president Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin encounter case. That tactic helped distract then CJI, Dipak Misra, from fast-tracking the Ayodhya case. Another major distraction was caused by the press conference held by the four-collegium members (Justices J. Chelameswar, Madan B. Lokur, Kurian Joseph and Ranjan Gogoi) in January 2018, directing vague charges of bench allocation against CJI Misra (which, as the present CJI Ranjan Gogoi later conceded, was anyway a particular CJI’s prerogative).
The vile bunch of lawyers, politicians and professional PIL activists next attempted to impeach Misra in order to intimidate him. By all means, the impeachment was bound to fail, yet it was only meant as a delay tactic. Before the Lok Sabha elections, it was alleged that if the results of Ram Mandir case had come in the favour of Hindu party, it would have benefited the BJP and therefore nearly all major opposition parties did not want a legal resolution to the issue. All three tactics served to ensure that the Ayodhya case would be pushed beyond the end of Misra’s term as CJI on October 2, 2018. But since the appointment of CJI Gogoi, the case has been finally making headways and though Gogoi has said that it would be a miracle that a judgment would be delivered within four weeks by November 17, he has finally set straight the delay tacticians who are vehemently against the Ram Mandir and its existence.
On Thursday, SC gave a rap to the Muslim parties when its lawyer Rajeev Dhavan attempted to dis-credit the Archaeological Survey of India’s excavation data at the disputed site in 2003. The SC asked why Muslim parties did not cross-examine the ASI team of archaeologists before the High Court and why attempts were being made to discredit the ASI report during hearing of appeals. This was another pathetic attempt of the Sunni Muslim Wakf Board and its controversial lawyer Dhavan to delay the judiciary process.
The statement of SC regarding completing the hearing by October 18 is important because CJI Gogoi is slated to retire on November 17 and he has been at the helm of affairs since the daily hearing started on 6th August and has heard the case from starting. If the judgment is not delivered till then, the new CJI would have to come in and the entire laborious judiciary task might have to be repeated again as the new CJI would have to go through the case thoroughly too. The court has said it will sit for an extra hour whenever required and added the lawyers also have to assist in assuring the arguments get over by October 18.