The Supreme Court’s judgment in the Babri Masjid case dashes the hope that it will uphold it’s counter-majoritarian character.
The Supreme Court of India rewrote Indian secularism on November 9. While it acknowledged that all religions are equal before the Constitution the implied message was that Hindus are more equal than other religionist. While deciding the claims of Hindus and Muslims over the disputed land in Ayodhya, the court exercised it’s power under article 142 of the Constitution,”to do complete Justice in any cause or matter pending before it” to deliver a judgment on the basis of Faith rather than on legal principles. Most supporters of the judgment considered the absence of street protest against it as clearing of its legitimacy. But to many objective observers, the Court’s counter-majoritarian character, which the framers of the Constitution had envisaged, stood seriously compromised by the judgment. Several others felt it was a chilling message to all minority communities that the “equality” guaranteed by the Constitution could be different in practice.
There were omnious signs when the five judge Constitution Bench assembled on the morning of November 9, a Saturday, and a holiday, to pronounce the verdict in M Siddiq vs Mahant Suresh Das, involving several appeals against the Allahabad High Court’s 2010 judgment in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi title case. Although it was known that the judgment in the Ayodhya case would be delivered before Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi retired on November 17, none expected the bench to deliver it on a Saturday. The momentous occasion was filled with suspense, with a few surprises waiting to be discovered.
The bench comprising the CJI, Justices S.A. Bobde, Dhananjay Y. Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S. Abdul Nazeer unianimously decided the case on a distinction of probabilities in the favour of Hindus deity, Ram Lalla, while acknowledging that Muslims had used the site as a mosque earlier.
The Bench directed the Centre to form a trust within three months for the construction and management of a Hindu temple to built at the site, which, it decided, belonged to one of the three parties of the dispute, namely, Shri Ram Virajman(idol), which was first represented by it’s next friend, Deoki Nandan Agarwal, and later by Triloki Nath Pandey. Both Agarwal and Pandey are associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad(VHP), an associate of the Sangh Parivar. The VHP played a leading role in the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, and in the building of a makeshift temple in its place subsequently. Both Agarwal and Pandey submitted that the site where the Babri Masjid stood had been worshipped at the birthplace of Ram since time immemorial, and, therefore, no other party could assert it’s ownership as it is a deity.