Hearing on pleas against Places of Worship Act on April 5

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New Delhi, March 27

The Supreme Court will hear on April 5 the petitions challenging the validity of certain provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which prohibit filing of lawsuits to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Monday agreed to take up the petitions on the date fixed after advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, one of the petitioners, submitted that the matter was already listed for hearing on April 5 and it should not be deleted from the list of business on that day.

“It will not be deleted on that day,” the CJI said. The top court had on January 9 asked the Centre to respond to petitions challenging the validity of certain provisions of the Act. A CJI-led Bench, which has already issued notice on the petitions, had given the Centre time till the end of February to submit its response to the petitions against the Act.

The petitioners and intervenors included BJP leader Subramanian Swamy and Ashwini Upadhyay, retired Army officer Anil Kabotra, advocates Chandra Shekhar and Rudra Vikram Singh, Devkinandan Thakur Ji, Swami Jeetendranand Saraswati, and former BJP MP Chintamani Malviya, besides others.

The petitions are being seen as an attempt to start a legal battle to reclaim disputed religious sites at Kashi, Mathura and some other places where disputed mosques stand. In a unanimous verdict on November 9, 2019, on the Ayodhya issue, a five-judge Bench headed by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi had described the 1991 Act as a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of Indian polity.