Babri demolition: SC wants expeditious hearing

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday directed a Rae Bareily court to expeditiously hear Babri Masjid demolition case against senior BJP leader L K Advani and 19 others against whom charge of criminal conspiracy was dropped by the trial court.

Expressing deep anguish over non-appearance of the counsel for CBI, which has moved the apex court against dropping of conspiracy charges against the top politicians in the apex court, a bench of justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad directed the trial court to hear the case expeditiously. The bench, meanwhile, allowed the CBI to remove the name of Bal Thackeray from the list of accused persons as he died recently. The bench pulled up Additional Solicitor General A S Chandiok for not being present in the court to argue the case for CBI saying the law officer is taking the court "casually". Besides, Advani others against whom the CBI wants the charges of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B IPC restored are -- Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Satish Pradhan, CR Bansal, MM Joshi, Vinay Katiyar, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Sadhvi Ritambhara, VH Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, RV Vedanti, Param Hans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, BL Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and Moreshwar Save. PTI