Supreme Court will heart the case on Ram Temple on January 4. (File)
The Ayodhya temple-mosque dispute will be taken up in the Supreme Court on January 4, court officials announced today. The top court had in October rejected an urgent hearing after the Uttar Pradesh government argued that it was a 100-year-old dispute that should be taken up on priority.
The decision to move the case to January was seen by many to have dimmed hopes for a verdict before the national election next year. It triggered loud demands for an ordinance within the BJP and various groups linked to its ideological mentor RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) to pave way for the construction in the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Some 14 petitions have challenged the Allahabad High Court's 2010 verdict partitioning the land into three -- for the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla (infant Lord Ram, a party to the case).
The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul is likely to constitute a three-judge bench for hearing all the petitions in the case, reported news agency PTI.
The BJP is of the view that the Supreme Court should hear the Ram temple land dispute case on a daily basis to deliver an early judgment, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said today.
The 16th century Babri mosque was razed in December 1992 by Hindu activists who believed it was built on the ruins of an ancient temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram.