SC refuses to hold early hearing on Ayodhya

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hold an early hearing on petitions challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict on the title suit of the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site.

Telling BJP leader Subramanian Swamy that there were too many things to do right now, the bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar said that as of now it did not have time to hear the petitions.

The bench also told the MP: "We came to know from the media that you are not a party in the matter."

Swamy told the court that his writ petition seeking an early hearing of the matter as his right to pray at the Ramlala temple at Ayodhya was being affected had been converted into an intervention application.

Swamy had on March 21 urged the court to hold an early hearing of the matter as it was pending before it for last so many years.

The top court had on March 21 said the settlement of the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute through negotiation was a better course than insisting on a judicial pronouncement.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Khehar had said this on March 21 after Swamy urged the court to set up a bench to hear a bunch of petitions challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court order as the matter was pending before it for six years.

The Allahabad High Court order said that there should be a partition of the disputed Ayodhya land amongst the claimants.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court ordered that the land around the disputed site be divided into three parts -- one for the deity (Ramlala Virajmaan), another for Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu sect and an original litigant in the case, and third for the Muslims.

The Supreme Court had put the Allahabad High court verdict on hold in May 2011, describing it as a "rare judgment whose operation has to be stayed".

--IANS

pk/mr