The Supreme Court on Wednesday fixed a timeframe by which submissions in the Ayodhya case have to be completed. With two months remaining for his retirement, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi on Tuesday insisted on a time schedule for proceeding further with the case, as without it, the five-judge bench would be short of time to prepare its historic verdict. Replying to that, parties involved submitted a rough estimate for completing all submissions likel by October 4. 

Court said that, "Let us all make a joint effort to complete arguments by October 18". This will give court a month to write the judgment. The Court indicated that it may sit on holidays, if required to complete the hearings. SC also passed an order on the letter received from the mediation panel.  Court said that "hearing of appeals shall continue without interference. In the meantime if parties desire to settle the matter including mediation by the earlier mediation panel, they may do so and submit the final settlement before this Court."

However, Court said if the mediation happens, then it's earlier order of maintaining the confidentiality of proceedings will hold the field

On Tuesday, speaking for the bench, the CJI asked senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan to take the lead in preparing the schedule after consulting all counsels. The trigger came when Dhavan requested for a week-off on Friday. To the plea, the CJI said, “It's about time that all parties decide upon a calendar fixing the schedule of arguments. Only then we can consider on which day you can take the day off. We want to know how many days we have to write the judgment.”

What has raised concern with the bench is also the fact that the judgment needs to be given before November 17 when CJI is to retire.