The Ayodhya case hearing was deferred to January 29 after one of the judges on the 5-judge bench recused from the case. Justice UU Lalit opted out as he had earlier appeared in a case related to the matter. The bench will now have to be reconstituted.

The new bench has a daunting task of trawling through reams of evidence, deposition of witnesses and thousands of documents. The judges will be presented with deposition of 88 witnesses, running into 13,886 pages, also 257 related documents and video tapes. The earlier court orders run into 4,304 printed pages and 8533 typed pages.

“The apex court registry will physically examine the records stored in 15 sealed trunks in the room, which has also been kept sealed,” the bench said.

The court has also had to deal with ‘unclear translations’. The documents, written in Hindi, Awadhi, Gurmukhi, Persian and Urdu had to be translated into English but the registrar general’s report to the bench said the translation were not clear and parties to the case had raised objections.

The Chief Justice on Thursday asked the registrar general’s office to assess the papers, fix translations and submit a report to the bench on January 29 so that the court could fix the schedule for the case.

“If required, the apex court registry can take the service of official translators,” the bench said.

The case is pending before the apex court since 2010 when 14 cross-appeals were filed against the Allahabad high court’s 2010 judgement dividing the 2.77 acre land equally among the three parties - the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu religious denomination, and Ram Lalla, or infant Ram, represented by the Hindu Mahasabha - for the construction of a Ram temple.

The Supreme Court was originally supposed to hear the case in October, but deferred this to January, rejecting the Uttar Pradesh government’s plea for speedy hearings with CJI Gogoi saying the court had its “own priorities”

The postponement had led to demands from several right-wing groups affiliated to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for a law or executive order to facilitate the building of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a recent interview that his government would wait for the courts to rule on the case.

First Published: Jan 10, 2019 12:42 IST