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Former Supreme Court judge Justice R F Nariman has criticised the top court's 2019 judgement in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case, describing it as a "great travesty of justice" that did not do justice to the principle of secularism. Speaking at the First Justice A M Ahmadi Memorial Lecture on 'Secularism and the Indian Constitution', Justice Nariman, however, said the judgment had a "silver lining" as it upheld the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991. He said the Places of Worship Act should be strictly implemented to put an end to disputes over religious places which are popping up every day across the country like "hydra heads". "In my opinion, a great travesty of justice was that secularism was not given its due by these judgements," Justice Nariman said. Justice Nariman also disagreed with the reasoning given by the court to grant the disputed land despite holding that the demolition of the mosque was illegal. "Today we find hydra heads popping all over the ...
Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud on Monday said there was "nothing wrong" in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to his residence on Ganpati Puja and underscored the need for a "sense of maturity in political sphere" on such issues. "The PM visited my residence for Ganpati Puja. There is absolutely nothing wrong as these are continuing meetings between the judiciary and the executive even at social level. We meet at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Republic Day, etc. We are in conversation with the prime minister and the ministers. This conversation does not involve the cases which we decide but life and society in general," Chandrachud said at an event organised by the Indian Express group. The CJI said one had to respect that a dialogue took place as part of a robust inter-institutional mechanism and separation of powers between judiciary and the executive did not mean the two not meeting. On his statement that he prayed to God for the solution to the Ayodhya Ram Mandir dispute, .
The Uttar Pradesh government has suspended six officials of civic agencies for gross negligence following road cave-ins and waterlogging at several sections of the newly-built Ram Path in Ayodhya. About 15 bylanes and streets along the Ram Path were flooded after rain on June 23 and June 25. Even homes along the road went under water. Portions of the 14-kilometre road stretch also caved in at more than a dozen places. The suspended officials are Dhruv Aggarwal (executive engineer), Anuj Deshwal (assistant engineer) and Prabhat Pandey (junior engineer) of the Public Works Department (PWD) and Anand Kumar Dubey (executive engineer), Rajendra Kumar Yadav (assistant engineer) and Mohammad Shahid (junior engineer) of the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam. Aggarwal and Deshwal were suspended on the orders of special secretary Vinod Kumar on Friday. Pandey's suspension order was issued by PWD chief engineer (development) VK Srivastav. Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam managing director Rakesh Kumar Mishra .
Acharya Laxmikant Dixit, the chief priest who had performed the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, died Saturday morning. Family members said Dixit, 86, was not well for the last few days. His last rites will be conducted at Manikarnika Ghat. Lord Ram's idol was consecrated at the Ayodhya temple on January 22 in an event led by Prime Minister Modi. Counted among the senior scholars of Varanasi, Dixit was a native of Solapur district of Maharashtra but his family has been living in Varanasi for several generations. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief over the death of Dixit. In a post on 'X', he said, "The departure of Acharya Shri Laxmikant Dixit, a great scholar of Kashi and the chief priest of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Prana Pratishtha, is an irreparable loss to the spiritual and literary world." "He will always be remembered for his service to Sanskrit language and Indian culture," Adityanath said. "I pray to Lord Shri Ram to give a place to the de
A day after the NCERT defended its modifying references to Babri Masjid demolition in school textbooks, Kerala Minister M B Rajesh on Monday termed it as a move to communalise all systems of the government and said there was a need to continue the collective fight against such attempts. Rajesh, a CPI(M) leader, said the BJP-led union government had done similar things in the past 10 years, also claiming that there was no agenda behind their actions. The present move by the NCERT has proved that despite the BJP's decreased number of seats in the Lok Sabha and the party losing the majority to rule independently, the Sangh Parivar was not ready to withdraw from its extreme communal agendas, the minister for Local Self-Government Department (LSGD) alleged. "This is a warning to everyone. So, we have to continue the fight against the Sangh Parivar and their efforts to communalise textbooks and all other systems of the government," he told reporters here. Rejecting accusations of ...
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath reached Ayodhya on Sunday, a day before the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple and oversaw final inspection of the preparations. Adityanath conducted the final inspection of the preparations for Pran Pratistha' and also took stock of other arrangements, a state government spokesperson said in a statement issued in Lucknow. The chief minister also met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat at Sangh office, Saket Nilayam. According to the statement, Adityanath then performed paid obeisance at Hanuman Garhi and later went to Ram temple and took stock of the preparations there. He also went to Karsevakapuram and visited the tent city built by the pilgrimage area there.
The Gohana intersection in Panipat will be named Shri Ram Chowk and the Railway Road intersection Maharshi Valmiki Chowk, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced on Sunday. The announcement comes on the eve of the 'Pran Pratishtha' consecration ceremony of the idol of Ram Lalla at the Ram temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. Today the whole world is expressing faith in Lord Ram in one voice, said Khattar, while addressing a gathering at Panipat during a 'Shobha Yatra' for which he was the chief guest. During the late evening programme, for which a large number of people had turned up despite biting cold, Khattar announced that the Gohana intersection in Panipat will be be named Shri Ram Chowk and the Railway Road intersection, also in Panipat, will be named Maharshi Valmiki Chowk. In the last 10 years, good governance has been practised and the concept of 'Ram Rajya' is now prevalent in the whole country, Khattar, a senior BJP leader, said. "We are following the ideals of Lord
With the consecration ceremony a couple of days away, the whole of Ayodhya is steeped in religious spirit. A new branch of a PSU bank that opened on Thursday in a building along the Ram Path here has been named the 'Ramjanmabhoomi' branch. A redeveloped road that skirts its way off Ram Path, on the way to the Ram temple site, has been named Ramjanmabhoomi Path. The bank's branch office, located in the vicinity, has been beautified with ornate lampposts and canopies with claddings on the side walls while a huge banner mounted on the wall bears an imposing image of the Ram temple along with the bank's name. Near the redeveloped Ayodhya Dham railway station, another PSU bank has set up a huge hoarding that reads 'Ayodhya Nagari mey aapka swagat hai". It depicts silhouettes of the Ram temple, the city skyline and Lord Ram holding his bow. The devotion to the deity is such that even commerce is not untouched by the spiritual feel in the holy city. Images of the grand temple is finding .