NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday obtained the center’s response to a PIL which challenged the constitutional validity of the Places of Worship Act (Special Provisions) of 1991 during the Independence Period.
A bank headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde addressed a notice to the PIL center filed by attorney-petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. He said the law was discriminatory as it prevented Hindus, Jains and Buddhists from reclaiming their old places of worship, which have been damaged and converted to mosques during the reign of Muslim kings.
Eight months after the Ayodhya ruling last June, a Hindu organization had relocated the SC to open a lawsuit for property claims in controversial locations such as those in Kashi and Mathura, as it challenged the validity of the 1991 law, the one Change put into effect character of religious places after independence, including through judicial proceedings.
The dispute over Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid was the only exception to the 1991 law, as the lawsuits had been pending before the court since 1949. A bank of five judges, led by then-CJI Ranjan Gogoi, had unanimously decided on November 9, 2019 to award the dispute to land in Ayodhya to Hindus who said they had presented better evidence of the property but asked the government to do that Compensating Muslims with an alternative 5 acre property in a prominent location in Ayodhya.
The five-judge bank, referring to the 1991 law in its 1,045-page Ayodhya judgment, said, “By providing a guarantee that the religious character of places of public worship such as existed on August 15, 1947, and bids against the conversion of places Parliament found that independence from colonial rule provides a constitutional basis for healing the injustices of the past by giving every religious community confidence that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be changed. ”
“Non-regression is a fundamental characteristic of fundamental constitutional principles, of which secularism is at the core. The law on places of worship is therefore a legislative intervention in which non-regression is preserved as an essential characteristic of our worldly values, ”it says.
However, the PIL submitted by ‘Vishwa Bhadra Pujari Purohit Mahasangh’ through attorney Vishnu Shankar Jain said that the remarks on the cardinality of the 1991 law were merely observations without judicial authority as the law was not challenged during the trial.
The petitioner said: “The 1991 law excluded the right and remedy against interference with the religious property of Hindus wielding power by followers of any other faith. The result is that Hindu followers cannot make their complaint by doing so filing a lawsuit in a civil court or relying on the jurisdiction of the High Courts against the handiness of ultras and not being able to restore the religious character of Hindu foundations, temples, mutt etc. of hoodlums if they were before the 15th August 1947 had intruded into such property and such illegal and barbaric acts will continue in the long run. ”
