Supreme Court today stayed till further orders all cases and stopped the registration of new ones that seek the determination of the religious character of a religious structure. The top court pointed out that it would be prudent to halt all further proceedings till it determined the constitutionality and the ambit of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
This impacts at least 18 suits against 10 religious structures including the Kashi Vishwanath temple – Gyanvapi Mosque (Varanasi), the Krishna Janmabhoomi – Shahi Idgah (Mathura), Lucknow’s Teele Wali Masjid, the dispute on the religious identity of Agra’s Taj Mahal etc will not be heard until after the Supreme Court decides on the constitutional validity of the POW act.
“Since the matter is sub-judice, we deem it appropriate to direct that while suits may be filed, no suits would be registered and proceedings undertaken till further orders of this Court. We also direct that in the pending suits, the Courts would not pass any effective interim orders or final orders, including orders of survey,” the special bench said while dictating the order in open court.
“At this stage, when the matter requires consideration will it not be proper to have a stay of hand at other courts? Will it be just and fair for courts to examine this issue if the top court is considering the vires and the ambit of the Act?” Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna reasoned amid opposition to the stay on all pending proceedings.
Justice KV Vishwanathan, who was part of the three-judge special bench, while alluding to the 2019 Ayodhya Ram Mandir judgment said when a five-judge has already clarified its position on the POW Act, then civil courts can’t run a race against the Supreme Court. “That is why there has to be a stay,” Justice Vishwanath said while noting the growing number of disputes and survey orders that sought to ascertain the religious identity of a structure.
The court then directed the Centre and all stakeholders to file their replies/affidavits within the stipulated time. The Centre has been given four weeks time, while the parties have been given four weeks after that to file their counter-affidavits.
What is the Places of Worship Act?
In 1990, when the dispute in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi peaked, seers and right-wing organization – Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), laid fresh claims and questioned the original religious identity of the Gyanvapi mosque (in Varanasi) and the Shahi Idgah (in Mathura). The then-PV Narasimha Rao government passed the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) act, 1991 which effectively froze the religious identity of a structure to as they were on August 15, 1947. This act resulted in a freeze on all litigations on this issue while carving out an exception for the Ayodhya dispute.
More than three decades after the act was passed, the Supreme Court will now evaluate the constitutional validity of this act, or if the Act passes muster, will direct the implementation of the same.
The plea seeking the enforcement of the act was first filed in 2020 by BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, and advocate Vishnu Jain for Hindu organisations among others have also followed suit.
In 2021, a mosque custodian moved the apex court claiming that the pleas challenging the act were “mischievous” and aimed to isolate the Muslim community as a separate category from other major religious communities in India.
Since then, many more writ petitions and intervention applications have been filed, right uptil the last hour before the scheduled hearing today. The Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind has sought the implementation of the Act, while political parties like CPI(M), Indian Union Muslim League, DMK and RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha, NCP (Sharad Pawar) MP Jitendra Awhad etc, sought the protection of the Act.
On the other hand, several private individuals incuding Sudarshan TV Editor-In-Chief Suresh Chvhanke among other right-wing religious organizations have challenged the provisions of the law.
What does the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya judgment say?
The Supreme Court five-judge Constitution Bench in November 2019, ruled that the Places of Worship Act, 1991 manifested the secular fabric of the Constitution and strictly prohibits retrogression, settling the issue once and for all.
The top court added that the Act provided a guarantee for the preservation of the religious character of places of public worship as they existed on 15 August 1947. The Parliament, in bringing the law, furnished “a constitutional basis for healing the injustices of the past by providing the confidence to every religious community that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be altered.”
“The State, has by enacting the law, enforced a constitutional commitment and operationalized its constitutional obligations to uphold the equality of all religions and secularism which is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution," the judgment by the five-judge Constitution Bench said.