Babri Masjid case: SC advances hearing to October

The CBI had pleaded for an early hearing, which was not opposed by Advani

The Supreme Court today advanced by about two months the date of hearing in Babri Masjid demolition case against L K Advani and 19 others after CBI pleaded for an early hearing which was not opposed by the senior BJP leader.

A bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi, before whom the matter was mentioned by the CBI, passed the order and preponed the case to first week of October which was earlier listed for hearing in December.

The case was filed by CBI challenging Allahabad High Court's verdict on dropping conspiracy charge against Advani and 19 others in Babri Masjid demolition case.

Pleading for early hearing, senior advocate P P Rao, appearing for CBI, submitted that the case was earlier directed to be listed in September for hearing but registry record says that the matter will be taken up by the apex court in December.

Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for Advani, also agreed to preponement of the hearing date.

The apex court had earlier pulled up CBI for the delay in filing an appeal against the Allahabad High Court verdict.

CBI had filed an appeal in the apex court challenging the verdicts of a special CBI court and the Allahabad High Court dropping conspiracy charge against Advani, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar and Murli Manohar Joshi.

The others against whom the charge was dropped included Satish Pradhan, C R Bansal, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Sadhvi Ritambhara, V H Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, R V Vedanti, Param Hans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, B L Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and Moreshwar Save.

Bal Thackeray's name was removed from the list of accused persons after his death.