No error in Allahabad HC order impleading Centre and ASI in Shahi Idgah mosque case, says SC
The Supreme Court on Monday said that the order passed by the Allahabad High Court in the Shahi Idgah case, allowing the Hindu side's plea to amend their plaint and add the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) as a party, is prima facie correct.
The high court on March 5 allowed an amendment application filed by the Hindu side (plaintiffs) permitting them to incorporate new facts into the suit and add the Union of India and ASI as defendants.
Challenging this HC order, the Muslim side had moved the top court and sought quashing of it. The Muslim side, in the top court, opposed the Hindu parties' application to amend the suit. They said it was a way to get around their defence, which was based on the Places of Worship Act.
During the course of the hearing, the two-judge bench of the top court, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and including Justice PV Sanjay Kumar, refused to entertain the appeal of the Muslim side. "The Committee of Management of the Shahi Idgah mosque is absolutely wrong in their plea that the Allahabad High Court's decision to allow the Hindu plaintiffs to do so was wrong," the court said.
This order of the top court necessarily means that the Hindu plaintiffs have to be allowed to implead the ASI and the Union in the main suits filed on behalf of the deity.
The apex court on Monday granted time to the Muslim side to file their reply and deferred the hearing to April 8.
The complex is located adjacent to the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple, a site of significant religious importance for Hindus.
The Hindu litigants claimed the premises hold signs suggesting that a temple once existed at the site.
The mosque committee, in its appeal filed in the apex court, said the lawsuits filed by Hindu litigants over the dispute violated the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, and were therefore not maintainable.
It is to be noted that Allahabad High Court judge Justice Mayank Jain had on August 1, dismissed the plea filed by the Shahi Idgah Masjid Committee challenging the maintainability of the suits filed by the Hindu parties seeking restoration of the Lord Krishna temple at the location where the mosque exists.
The Hindu parties claimed in the HC that Sri Krishna's birthplace lies beneath the mosque and that there were many signs which established that the mosque was indeed a Hindu temple.
On the other hand, the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board sought dismissal of the plea filed by the Hindu side. It argued in the HC that the suits of the Hindu side were barred under the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 ('Places of Worship Act') that prohibited changing the status of any place of worship from what it was on the day of the country's Independence.
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