The SC had directed that mediation proceedings be completed within eight weeks. (File)TWO MONTHS after it ordered mediation while looking at the “possibility of healing relationships” in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, the Supreme Court will take up the matter again Friday — the last day before summer vacations start.
An official notification said the matter has been listed at 10.20 am before a five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer.
On March 8, the Bench set up a three-member Mediation Panel headed by the apex court’s former Judge Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla and set an eight-week deadline. The other members on the panel are spiritual teacher Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu.
The court had directed that the proceedings be held in-camera as per norms applicable to conduct of mediation proceedings and “with utmost confidentiality so as to ensure its success”. It also asked various parties in the dispute to use the eight-week period to take steps to make their cases ready for hearing.
Besides the appeals against the Allahabad High Court’s order of September 30, 2010, dividing the disputed 2.77 acres of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site equally between the Nirmohi Akhara sect, the Sunni Central Wakf Board, Uttar Pradesh and the deity Ramlalla Virajman, the court is also seized of a couple of related pleas.
This includes an application by the Centre seeking permission to return the “excess/superfluous land” of the 67.703 acres acquired in Ayodhya to its original owners, including the Ram Janambhoomi Nyas. The Nirmohi Akhara has opposed the Centre’s plea.
