Supreme Court defers hearing plea to postpone Ayodhya verdict

The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred the hearing of a plea to postpone the Allahabad High Court verdict on the Ayodhya title suit dispute, due to be pronounced on Friday, after a bench said it did not have the “determination” to take up the matter.



The bench while refusing to hear the petition filed by retired bureaucrat Ramesh Chand Tripathi earlier in the day did not specify the date when the matter will be taken up again but directed the Court Registry to list it before another Bench in the routine course.

As all eyes were on the apex court with just two days left for the keenly awaited verdict, Justices Altmas Kabir and A. K. Patnaik said the petition will be taken up by another Bench as it did not have the “determination” to take up the matter.

“We do not have determination to take up the matter which has arisen from a civil suit,” the Bench said.

“Since I don’t have the determination, it will go to the Bench which has the determination,” Justice Kabir, who was heading the bench said.

Mr. Tripathi approached the court five days after a three-judge Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court rejected his petition for deferring the verdict and to allow mediation to find a solution to the 60-year-old Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit dispute.

The bench decided this morning to take up the petition at 2 pm after Mr. Tripathi’s counsel said it required urgent consideration.

“I can’t direct it for listing. I don’t have such power,” Justice Kabir said, when senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi, appearing for Mr. Tripathi, pleaded the case should be listed tomorrow.

The High Court had also imposed “exemplary costs” of Rs. 50,000 terming Mr. Tripathi’s effort for an out-of-court settlement of the dispute as a “mischievous attempt“.

The application, which sought some time to allow mediation, also challenged the costs of Rs. 50,000 imposed on him.

In his petition before the High Court, Mr. Tripathi had claimed that verdict might disturb communal harmony and lead to violence in the country.