SC adjourns Ayodhya land dispute case hearing till January 2019

The appropriate bench will decide the future course of hearing on the appeals filed against the Allahabad High Court verdict in the Ayodhya land dispute case, SC said.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the dispute concerning the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid issue to January 2019. The apex court said that the case will be listed before an appropriate bench in January 2019 and the date for the hearing will be fixed then.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph said that the appropriate bench will decide the future course of hearing on the appeals filed against the Allahabad High Court verdict in the Ayodhya land dispute case.

"We will fix the date of hearing of the Ayodhya dispute case before the appropriate bench in January," the bench, which also comprised Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, said.

Earlier, a three-judge bench, by a 2:1 majority, refused to refer to a five-judge constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement that a mosque was not integral to Islam. The matter had arisen during the hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute.

An apex court bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the civil suit has to be decided on the basis of evidence, adding that the previous verdict has no relevance to this issue. The bench had fixed the batch of appeals for final hearing on Monday.

As many as 14 appeals have been filed against the high court judgement, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77 acres of land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.