SC to hear plea for early hearing of Ayodhya land dispute case on Thursday

A five-judge Constitution bench comprising of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and Abdul Nazeer, will hear an application filed by one of the litigants in the Ayodhya case seeking early hearing of the matter on Thursday. The top court will hear the case at 10:30 AM on Thursday.

Senior advocate P S Narsimha, who appeared for litigant Gopal Singh Visharad, told the bench headed by Chief Justice on Tuesday that the apex court should list title dispute case for urgent hearing because "nothing much has been happening" in the case which was referred to the three-member mediation panel by the SC. After hearing advocate Narsimha's argument, the SC asked him whether he had filed an application for early hearing. The advocate replied saying that he had already done so.

It is to be noted that SC had granted the three-member mediation panel time till August 15 to find a solution in the Ayodhya land dispute case. The committee, which submitted its interim report on Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid case in a sealed cover to the top court in May, had sought additional time.

A three-member mediation committee was constituted by the SC on March 8 to explore possibilities of an amicable settlement to the land dispute after noting “the lack of consensus between the parties in the matter.” The panel is headed by retired top court judge Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla, and comprises of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and senior Madras High Court advocate Sriram Panchu. The SC bench had given eight weeks to the panel to complete the mediation process. 

A total of 14 pleas have been filed in the SC challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77-acre land in Ayodhya be partitioned equally among the three parties - the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.