The Supreme Courtroom is scheduled to listen to on Thursday a batch of PILs difficult the validity of sure provisions of a 1991 legislation that prohibits submitting a lawsuit to reclaim a spot of worship or search a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.
A 3-judge bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, and Justices Sanjay Kumar and Ok V Viswanathan is prone to hear the matter. The highest court docket is seized of the pleas, together with one filed by Ashwini Upadhyay who has prayed that sections 2, Three and four of the Locations of Worship (Particular Provisions) Act, 1991, be put aside.
Among the many varied causes submitted was the competition that these provisions take away the fitting of judicial treatment to reclaim a spot of worship of any particular person or a spiritual group.
The Communist Get together of India (Marxist) and Maharashtra MLA Jitendra Satish Awhad have additionally filed pleas in opposition to a number of pending petitions difficult the constitutional validity of the Locations of Worship (Particular Provisions) Act, 1991, saying the legislation protected public order, fraternity, unity and secularism of the nation.
The matter will likely be heard within the backdrop of a number of fits filed in varied courts, together with these associated to the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, Shahi Idgah Mosque in Mathura and Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal, claiming these had been constructed after destroying historical temples and looking for permission to permit the Hindus to supply prayers there.
The Muslim facet, in most of those circumstances, has cited the 1991 legislation to argue that such fits should not maintainable. As many as six petitions, together with these filed by former Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy, have been filed in opposition to the provisions of the 1991 legislation.
Swamy needed the apex court docket to “learn down” sure provisions to allow Hindus to stake declare over the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi and Shahi Idgah Mosque in Mathura, whereas Ashwini Upadhyay claimed all the statute was unconstitutional and no query of studying down arises.
The doctrine of studying down a legislation is mostly used to avoid wasting a statute from being struck down totally topic to adjudication over its constitutionality.
Then again, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind had cited the five-judge Structure bench judgement within the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title case, noting the reference to the Locations of Worship (Particular Provisions) Act, 1991, to argue that the legislation can’t be put aside now.
The highest court docket had on March 12, 2022, sought the Centre’s response to the plea filed by Upadhyay difficult the validity of sure provisions of the legislation.
The petition alleged the 1991 legislation creates an “arbitrary and irrational retrospective closing date” of August 15, 1947, for sustaining the character of the locations of worship or pilgrimage in opposition to encroachment achieved by “fundamentalist-barbaric invaders and law-breakers”.
The 1991 legislation prohibits converasion of anyplace of worship and supplies for the upkeep of the non secular character of anyplace of worship because it existed on August 15, 1947, and for issues linked therewith or incidental thereto.
The legislation had made just one exception — on the dispute pertaining to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri masjid in Ayodhya.
