Sunni Waqf Board won’t challenge Ayodhya verdict

Tribune News Service

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Lucknow, November 26

Six of the seven Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board members, who met here today, endorsed its chairperson Zufar Ahmad Faruqi’s stand not to file a review petition in the Supreme Court against its verdict in the Babri Masjid title suit.

The lone dissenting vote was of lawyer and Board member Abdur Razzaq Khan. The eighth member, Imran Mabood Khan, who had earlier disagreed with the chairperson, did not attend the meeting reportedly due to ill health. Faruqi appears to have clearly prevailed over the six members.

The decision on accepting the five-acre plot in Ayodhya for building a mosque, which the apex court verdict has directed the Union and state governments to give to the Board, has been deferred.

Dissenting member Razzaq Khan described the decision as “ridiculous”. Sources said he charged Faruqi of passing off his own decision not to go in for judicial review as that of the UPSCWB. He reportedly alleged that no discussion was held on the review petition at any UPSCWB meeting and it remained a mystery on what basis Faruqi hurriedly announced it as that of the Board hours after the verdict was delivered on November 9.

 The Board decision carries significance as it is a litigant in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit and was given one-third of the disputed land by the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict.