There’s a limit: SC livid over Worship Act pleas

As various political parties and leaders file fresh petitions in a case related to validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, the Supreme Court on Monday took exception to it, saying there was a limit to it.

“There is a limit to which petitions can be filed. Enough is enough. There has to be an end to this. Too many petitions filed,” a Bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said after several lawyers urged the Bench to allow new intervention applications in the matter.

UP’s reply sought as part of mosque razed

The Supreme Court on Monday directed Uttar Pradesh authorities to respond as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them for razing a portion of a mosque at Kushinagar in alleged disobedience of the apex court’s direction.

“We will not take up the Places of Worship Act matter today. It’s a three-judge Bench matter. List it sometime in March,” the Bench said and went on to post the matter for hearing in April. The top court dismissed petitions in which no notice had been issued even as it gave liberty to petitioners to file applications raising additional grounds in the ongoing matter wherein it’s seized of petitions challenging certain petitions of the 1991 Act and those seeking implementation of the controversial law.

Enacted by Parliament during the PV Narasimha Rao government in the backdrop of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir agitation, this Act freezes the religious character of a place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947, except that of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid, which was demolished by ‘kar sevaks’ on December 6, 1992. Following a Supreme Court verdict, a Ram temple has been constructed in Ayodhya.

The Supreme Court had on December 12, 2024, restrained trial courts across India from registering fresh suits and ordering surveys or passing any effective and final orders with regard to religious character of existing religious structures in already pending suits. The stay order meant that in pending suits regarding Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi mosque, Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah (Mathura), Sambhal Jama Masjid, Bhojshala and Ajmer Sharif dargah disputes, courts cannot pass any effective or final orders, including those for surveys. The Bench had, however, refused to stay the proceedings in 18 suits already pending with regard to 10 places of worship. It had asked the Centre and other respondents to file their replies in four weeks.

On Monday, senior advocates Vikas Singh, Rakesh Dwivedi and others, representing various parties, pointed out that despite issuance of notice, the Centre hadn’t filed its response in the matter. Since the December 12, 2024, stay order, several petitions have been filed, including those by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, Samajwadi Party leader and Kairana MP Iqra Choudhary and the Congress, seeking effective implementation of the 1991 Act.

Several politicians, including CPM leader Prakash Karat and RJD MP Manoj Jha, had already moved the Supreme Court in support of the Act and the court had allowed their impleadment applications. NCP (Sharad Pawar) MLA Jitendra Satish Awhad and the Indian Union Muslim League leaders PK Kunhalikutty and ET Muhammed Basheer too had moved the top court to hear the party before taking a call on the validity of the Act.

There are several petitions, including those filed by Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti, advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and former Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy, against the 1991 Act. Some of the petitions have been pending since 2020. The petitioners alleged that it created an “arbitrary and irrational retrospective cut-off date” of August 15, 1947, for maintaining the character of the places of worship or pilgrimage against encroachments done by “fundamentalist-barbaric invaders and law-breakers”.