Apex court allows Hindu litigant to file written note

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday allowed a Hindu litigant in the decades-old Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case to file a written note seeking to declare the 2.77 acre site at Ayodhya as government land if the court holds that neither the Hindu nor the Muslim side has proved ownership. Umesh Chandra Pandey, who was made a party (defendant) in a lawsuit filed in 1961 by the UP Sunni Central Wakf Board, mentioned the Ayodhya case before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and sought its nod for filing the written note on ‘moulding of reliefs’. When senior advocate V Shekhar, appearing for Pandey, sought the permission to file the written note on Thursday, after the expiry of the deadline, the bench observed: “We thought the Ayodhya case is over”. However, the bench allowed the filing of the written note. Pandey, in his note, said the entire territory of Awadh was annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1856 after dethroning of ‘Nawab’ and later a proclamation was issued by Lord Canning confiscating the proprietary right of Awadh land to the British government on March 3, 1858. Hence, the disputed land at Ayodhya became ‘nazul’ (government) land and the same position remains as on today which has been accepted by Muslim parties also, it said. “While moulding the relief, this court may consider that in the event of plaintiffs (the deity through next friend and others) in suit no. 5 and plaintiffs in suit number 4 (Sunni Wakf Board and others) failing to prove the title to the disputed land, the court may declare that the title (ownership) in respect of disputed land belongs to the state and it is for the state to decide what to do with the disputed land…,” it said. (PTI)