SC to hear Tuesday plea challenging validity of 1991 Places of Worship Act

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Tuesday a plea challenging the validity of a provision of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which mandates maintaining the religious character of a place as it existed on August 15, 1947.

As per the cause list of April 1, the plea is slated to come up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar.

The law prohibits conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.

However, the dispute relating to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid at Ayodhya was kept out of its purview. 

The plea has sought the apex court's direction allowing courts to pass appropriate orders to ascertain the original religious character of a place of worship.

It has challenged section 4(2) of the Act that barred proceedings to change the religious character, besides prohibiting filing of fresh cases for the same.

"The Centre has transgressed its legislative power in barring the judicial remedy, which is a basic feature of the Constitution. It is well established that the right to judicial remedy by filing suit in a competent court, cannot be barred and the power of courts cannot be abridged and such denial has been held to be violative of basic feature of the Constitution, beyond legislative power," the plea filed by petitioner Nitin Upadhyay, a law student, said.

The plea, filed through advocate Shweta Sinha, said the Act mandated preservation and maintenance of the religious character of places of worship without barring changes in the "structure, edifice, construction or building" in these places.

It said, "Structural change is permissible to restore the original religious character of the place."  The Act did not prohibit any scientific or documentary survey to ascertain the religious character of the place, the plea said.

In February, the apex court had expressed displeasure over filing of several pleas on the 1991 Act and said a three-judge bench would in April hear the pending post-notice petitions related to the law.

The top court, however, had granted liberty to some petitioners to file applications for intervention in the pending ones by citing new legal grounds  The top court, through its December 12, 2024 order, effectively stalled proceedings in about 18 lawsuits filed by various Hindu parties seeking survey to ascertain original religious character of 10 mosques, including Gyanvapi at Varanasi, Shahi Idgah Masjid at Mathura and Shahi Jama Masjid at Sambhal where four people died in clashes.