Former Supreme Court judge Rohinton Nariman, expressing concern over the recent cases for surveying mosques and shrines, said, ‘Today we find hydra heads popping up all over the country, we find cases filed everywhere… Not only now. About mosques but dargahs.
“All this can lead to communal tension and inequality, contrary to what is envisaged both in our Constitution and the Places of Worship Act,” Justice Nariman said in the inaugural lecture of the Justice AM Ahmadi Foundation titled “Secularism and the Indian Constitution”. “. The event also saw the official release of Insiah Vahanwati’s book on his grandfather – “Judge AM Ahmadi: The Fearless Judge”.
Justice Nariman said that the five-judge constitution bench that delivered the verdict in the 2019 Ayodhya case also expanded the scope of the Places of Worship Act. He said, “This same constitution bench spends five pages on this and says that in secularism, which is part of the basic structure, you cannot look back, you have to look forward…Every religious place of worship has been frozen till August 15, 1947. Now whoever tries to change it, those suits will be dismissed.”
Elaborating further, he said, “We have this stable position as on 15 August 1947 so that, short of Ayodhya – which was set aside as a special case in the Places of Worship Act – all other places will at least be protected.”
The Places of Worship Act, 1991 effectively stabilizes the “religious character” of places of worship as on August 15, 1947. According to Justice Nariman, the purpose of the Act was, “You shall not look to the past. You shall not attempt to counteract historical wrongs by violating the rule of law or by asking the courts to do the same.”
So, the only way to deal with the recent suits like “Hydra Heads” alleging the existence of temples at other places of worship, is by “applying these five pages in the same judgment (in the Ayodhya case) and reading them before every District Court and High Court. Because these five pages It is the declaration of law by the Supreme Court that binds each of them.”
In the Ayodhya judgment, he said the court’s finding that the structure below the mosque was, in his words, “probably a temple” was questionable given that the ASI survey had also found Buddhist and Jain artefacts at the site. He also disagreed with the finding that the inner courtyard (where the mosque was located) was a “disputed” site, “now disputed in the sense that there were serious attempts to displace them (Muslims) contrary to the rule of law.”
Speaking about his professional encounters with the Babri Masjid demolition cases in 1992, he said, two FIRs were then registered – one against karsevaks who attacked the mosque and another against political leaders who encouraged the act. “Until it came to me… in 2017, when I was sitting with Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, nothing had happened in these two FIRs for 25 years.” After that, he ordered that the Special Judge of Lucknow, Surendra Kumar Yadav, should hear two separate cases within two years.
After the special judge applied for more time, Justice Nariman recalled, “What we didn’t know was that he was going to retire… I think we have given an unprecedented order that he will not retire until the judgment goes.” “…And it took him three and a half years to get justice and you know what he did? He acquitted everyone. And what happened after he acquitted everyone? He retired and became the Upalokayukta in UP. That’s the state of the country.”
The program also featured a short address by senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi and a book discussion between journalists Vikram Chandra and Insia Vahanwati.