Lucknow: Plea against acquittal of Babri accused dismissed

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal filed against the verdict of a CBI court aquitting 32 accused, including former deputy PM LK Advani, former CM Kalyan Singh, former Union ministers MM Joshi and Uma Bharti, Ram temple trust general secretary Champat Rai, and MP Brij Bhushan Saran Singh, in the Babri Masjid demolition case. The appeal had been filed by two residents of Ayodhya -- Haji Mahmood Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad.
The court had reserved its order on October 31 and pronounced it on Wednesday.
Pronouncing the verdict, a bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Saroj Yadav said that their plea was not maintainable. The bench said that two appellants could not be treated as 'victims', therefore, they had no locus standi in the case. "The instant appeal is not maintainable," the court said. These two appellants had challenged the judgment of the special CBI court, Lucknow, which on September 30, 2020 had acquitted Advani, Kalyan and remaining 32 accused in the case. The CBI court had held that there was nothing on record to establish the existence of a conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid.
Challenging the verdict, the duo alleged that they were witnesses in the trial against the accused persons and victims owing to demolition of their historic place of worship, the Babri Masjid and as such were entitled to file the instant appeal. They also alleged that they suffered financial loss on account of destruction of their houses due to arson, loot, etc.
Opposing the appeal, the CBI's counsel Shiv Shukla, state government's lawyer Arunendra and an accused Champat Rai's senior counsel Raghvendra Singh stressed that the two appellants were not complainants or victims of the case and as such they could not prefer the appeal 'as strangers' against the verdict of the trial court.
Relying on a full court judgment passed in Manoj Kumar Singh case, the bench observed,"This court is of the opinion that the instant criminal appeal filed on behalf of the appellants under Section 372 Cr.P.C is liable to be dismissed on the ground of non-availability of the locus to the appellants for challenging the judgment of the special CBI court and hence the same is, accordingly, dismissed."
Two FIRs were lodged, a day after the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992. In the first FIR, 48 saffron leaders were named for criminal conspiracy behind the demolition. The second FIR booked unknown kar sevaks for the demolition.
After a long legal battle, the special CBI court on September 30, 2020 acquitted all the 32 accused while 16 of them passed away during the trial.
In its September 30, 2020 verdict, the CBI court ruled out any criminal conspiracy, and had held that the demolition on December 6, 1992 was a spontaneous act and not pre-planned.
Challenging the verdict, two Ayodhya residents filed an appeal which got dismissed on Wednesday at the admission stage, in a major relief to the accused persons, also including former MP Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Ashok Singhal and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.