On Monday, the Supreme Court postponed hearings on a number of pleas pertaining to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 until the first week of April.
According to a bench made up of Chief Justice of Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar, a three-judge panel will hear the case.
The top court voiced its disapproval earlier in the morning of the filling of many new pleas in a case concerning the legality of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which requires that a place’s religious character be preserved as it was on August 15, 1947.
CJI stated, “We might not be able to take it up”, when senior advocate Indira Jaising, representing a litigant, brought up a new plea for a daytime hearing.
The senior advocate brought up the issue at the beginning of the day’s proceedings.
The bench stated, “We are constrained to pass this order after taking note of the number of fresh petitions filed. The pending writ petitions, which have no notices, stand dismissed with liberty to file an application raising additional grounds, if any. The new IA will only be allowed if there is any new point or new legal issue that has not been raised in the pending petitions”.
In the week starting April 1, it presented the three-judge bench with the batch of petitions and cross-petitioners related to the 1991 law.
The CJI began by stating, “People keep on filing fresh petitions alleging that they have raised new grounds…It will become impossible for us to deal with the petitions besides whatever has already been filed”.
In estimated 18 lawsuits filled by different Hindu parties seeking a survey to determine the original religious character of 10 mosques – including Gyanvapi in Varanasi, Shahi Idgah Masjid in Mathura, and Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal, where four people were killed in clashes – the top court effectively stalled proceedings with its December 12, 2024 order.
On February 17, it listed every petition for a formal hearing.
Following December 12, a number of petitions were filed, including ones from the Congress party, Samajwadi Party leader and Kairana MP Iqra Choudhary, and AIMIM head Asaduddin Owaisi, calling for the 1991law to be implemented effectively.
On February 14, Choudhary, the Lok Sabha MP from Kairana, Uttar Pradesh, attempted to stop the growing trend of lawsuits against mosques and dargahs, arguing that they endanger national secular cohesion and communal harmony.
In the past, the Supreme Court consented to consider Owaisi’s separate plea with a similar prayer.
A Hindu organization called the Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti has petitioned the highest court to get involved in cases challenging the legality of the 1991 law’s provisions.
Earlier, the bench was considering estimated six petitions contesting different 1991 legislation sections, the most prominent of which was filled by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay.
The law forbids the conversion of any house of worship and stipulates that any place of worship must preserve its religious identity as it was on August 15, 1947.
It did not, however, cover the controversy surrounding the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
To preserve communal harmony and the current status of mosques, which desired to be reclaimed by Hindus because they were temples before invaders destroyed them, Muslim organizations such as the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind pushed for the 1991 ordinance to be strictly enforced.
However, petitioners such as Updhyay have attempted to have Sections 2, 3, and 4 of the Act invalidated.
The argument that these clauses denied any individual or religious organization the legal recourse to retake a place of worship was another of the justifications.
The bench had stated, “In the end, we will have to hear the arguments,” noting that Sections 3 and 4 of the 1991 law were the main point of contention.
Section 4 deals with declarations regarding the religious character of certain places of worship and the bar of judicial jurisdiction, etc., whereas Section 3 deals with the prohibition against conversion of places of worship.
In its intervention plea, the management committee of Gyanvapi Mosque resisted a number of ongoing petitions that contest the 1991 law’s constitutionality.
The mosque committee enumerated a number of controversial statements made over the years about several mosques and dargahs (shrines), such as the Kamal Maula Mosque in Madhya Pradesh, the Shahi Idgah Masjid in Mathura, and the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque close to Delhi’s Qutub Minar.
As a result, it said that the petitions contesting the Act were submitted with “mischievous intent” in order to enable legal action against these places of worship that were now protected by the 1991 Act.
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