Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Ayodhya matter should be cleared soon (File)
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said that the Ram Temple issue must be heard in the court without delay. He made the comment a day after the Supreme Court refused to hear the case--scheduled to be heard on Tuesday-- as one of the judges in the five-member Constitutional bench was not available.
"The Ayodhya case has been pending for the last 70 years. The Allahabad High Court order was in favour of the temple (in 2010), but then it is on hold in the Supreme Court now. This matter should be cleared soon," news agency IANS quoted him as saying.
"We all respect the Supreme Court, we have our faith in the judiciary," he said, adding the matter should be resolved "without any delay".
There have been demands from right-wing groups to bring an ordinance to construct the temple in Ayodhya. Several of the BJP members and allies are among those making the demand.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, said that the government would wait for the judicial process to get over.
"Let the judicial process be over. After the judicial process is over, whatever will be our responsibility as the government, we are ready to make all efforts," he said in an interview to news agency ANI earlier this month.
Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi reconstituted the five-judge Constitution bench to hear the Ayodhya case. The bench was to hear the case on Tuesday. But the case wouldn't be heard as Justice SA Bobde was unavailable.
The bench led by the Chief Justice will decide on a schedule and the frequency of hearings in the case. In the last hearing on January 11, Justice UU Lalit had recused himself from the bench saying he had been a lawyer in a related case. Justice Abdul Nazeer and Justice Ashok Bhushan were added on Friday.
With inputs from IANS