SC Bars New Petitions on Places of Worships Act, Noted Centre’s Stoic Silence on the Issue
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 17: The Supreme Court on Monday noted the Centre retain a stoic silence through not filing a counter-affidavit putting on record its response to the challenge to the validity of the “Places of Worship Act (Special Provisions), 1991,” even as the Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna expressed his displeasure over piles of new petitions filed in the matter.
“Enough is enough. There has to be an end to this,” CJI Khanna remarked during a short hearing on Monday morning on the Places of Worships Act, a law that protects the identity and character of religious sites since Independence Day, even as petitioners and intervenors pellet the court with multifarious viewpoints and legal questions, and stops a lawsuit from being filed to reclaim a place of worship or change its character. The CJI asserted that the Supreme Court would not hear any new petition in this matter.
The case has been pending for over four years. Eight orders of the apex court, spanning from October 2022 to December 2024, variously record the court either granting the government time to file an affidavit or the government promising the court that it was preparing a “comprehensive” one. The case, which was due to be heard on February 17, was adjourned to the week commencing the first of April by a Bench headed by CJI Khanna.
The court, however, has allowed the filing of an intervention petition with additional grounds though it refused to issue notice on the new petitions filed so far. The Supreme Court’s tough remarks came as it continued hearing petitions on the validity of the Places of Worship Act, which assumes significance in view of the legal efforts to reclaim demolished Hindu temples.
The law was passed in 1991 to disallow the change of religious character of a place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947. The Ram Janmabhoomi dispute was out of its purview. The original petition on the law’s validity was filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, but the court last year halted proceedings into 18 lawsuits by Hindu parties seeking to reclaim 10 mosques and tagged together all matters related to temple-mosque disputes. This includes the Shahi Idgah-Krishna Janmabhoomi, Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi mosque, and Sambhal mosque disputes.
The move saw several opposition parties making a beeline to the top court in favour of the law while Hindu groups and right-wing outfits opposed it. The Congress, which was in power when the law was passed, and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM are the latest political parties to have moved the Supreme Court seeking that the law be strictly implemented. Another petitioner who appeared in the court on Monday told the court that the law should be upheld since everyone deserves to live peacefully.
During the hearing, the CJI noted it had allowed the filing of new petitions last time, but there must be a limit to such interventions. “Application for fresh interventions will be allowed given it raised some ground which is not raised as yet,” said CJI Khanna. Senior advocate Vikas Singh, representing the petitioners, also pointed out that a reply was awaited from the Centre.
A galaxy of lawyers like senior advocates Kapil Sibal, A.M. Singhvi, Dushyant Dave, P. Wilson, Raju Ramachandran, Vikas Singh, advocates Kaleeswaram Raj, Ejaz Maqbool, Nizam Pasha among others appeared for the various parties and intervenors which include minority organisations, political parties and eminent individuals. The Centre was represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and advocate Kanu Agrawal.
Mr Raj said interventions were bound to happen in a case involving a seminal constitutional question. Mr Singh, appearing for petitioner-advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, pointed out that the court issued notice in the initial petitions as way back as in 2021. “Please direct the Centre to file its counter-affidavit at least in these petitions,” he submitted.
Earlier in the day, senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for one of the petitioners, orally mentioned the case before the two-judge Bench combination of Chief Justice Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar. However, the third judge on the Bench, Justice K.V. Viswanathan, was unavailable as he was heading another Bench of the apex court. “It may not be taken up today,” Chief Justice Khanna had indicated to Ms Jaising in the morning itself.
Ms Jaising had reminded the court that legal issues to be addressed in the case were yet to be framed. Parties in support of the 1991 law described it as a bastion against the mushrooming suits which ultimately intended to pave the way towards retrogression and communal tensions. They highlighted that various local courts, by ordering surveys of mosque premises in civil suits, were in direct violation of Sections 3 of the Act prohibiting the conversion of any place of worship and Section 4, which imposed a positive obligation to maintain the religious character of every place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.
On the other hand, those who have challenged the legality of the 1991 Act blame it for barring Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs from approaching courts to “reclaim” their places of worship which were “invaded” and “encroached” upon by “fundamentalist barbaric invaders.”
On December 12, 2024, the Supreme Court had barred all civil courts from registering fresh suits or passing orders in pending ones seeking to “re-claim” temples destroyed by Mughal “invaders” in the 16th century. Justice Viswanathan, in that hearing, had indicated that Section 3 was an “effective manifestation or a reiteration of Constitutional principles” and the suits could be objected to on the ground of violation of these basic Constitutional principles even in the absence of the 1991 Act.
