Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute: Muslim law board member claims Islam allows mosque to be shifted

BENGALURU: Speaking on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute, All India Muslim Personal Law Board member Maulana Sayyed Salman Husaini Nadvi has claimed that there is a provision in Islam to shift the mosque. Maulana Nadvi made the statement during a meeting with Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravishankar.

Sri Sri had on Thursday met a six-member Muslim delegation in Bengaluru to find a solution to the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute. The meeting lasted for three hours.

The six representatives who attended the meeting included executive member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board Maulana Sayyed Salman Husaini Nadvi, UP Sunni Central Waqf Board chairperson Zufar Farooqui, former IAS officer Anis Ansari, advocate Imran Ahmed, Maulana Wasif Hasan Waizi of Teeli Wali Masjid and director of Objective Research and Development Athar Husain.

The meeting was attended by representatives of Shias, Sunnis and various other people from the Muslim community. The next meeting will be held in Ayodhya in March.

The meeting comes at a time when the Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions against the Allahabad High Court verdict in the Ayodhya dispute. Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and two other judges – Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S Abdul Nazeer heard a total of 13 petitions over the disputed site in Ayodhya at around 2 pm.

A special bench of the top court headed by CJI Dipak Misra asked both the parties before the Allahabad High Court to file in two weeks the English translation of documents exhibited by them.

The apex court also directed its registry to provide copies of video cassettes, which were part of HC records, to parties on actual cost. The bench said that it would hear the appeals on March 14, 2018, and clarified that it never intended to hear the case on a "day-to-day basis".

The bench also added that it will deal with the instant matter as a "pure land dispute". The special bench of the apex court is seized of a total 14 appeals filed against the high court judgement delivered in four civil suits.

A three-judge bench of the Allahabad HC, in a 2:1 majority ruling, had in 2010 ordered that the land be partitioned equally among three parties - the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. 

The last hearing in the case was conducted on December 5, 2017 wherein senior lawyers, including Kapil Sibal, had pleaded that the hearing should be postponed. Appearing for UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, Sibal had said that the hearing should be deferred to July 2019, suggesting that it be held after the outcome of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The lawyers had also demanded that the case be referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench.

The court, however, rejected the plea by Sibal and scheduled the hearing for February 8.