The Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) are all set to file separate petitions before the Supreme Court seeking “effective implementation” of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, sources in both parties have told The Indian Express.
Congress insiders said the party’s plea was ready and would be “in the form of an impleadment application”, or a request to add a party to an ongoing legal proceeding. Both petitions are likely to be tagged with a series of ongoing pleas before the top court. Some of the petitions already before the court have challenged the validity of the Act while the rest advocate its strict enforcement.
Sources said there was a discussion among the INDIA bloc leadership about filing a joint plea to the Supreme Court court, but it didn’t work out. “Parties started doing it on their own, and hence, parties are filing the pleas on their own,” said a senior SP leader.
The Places of Worship Act, enacted in 1991, said the “religious character” of a place of worship would remain as it was on August 15, 1947. The only exception to this, as per the law, was the “Ram Janma Bhumi-Babri Masjid”. At the time of its enactment, the Ayodhya agitation was going on and the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute was in court.
Sources in the Congress said a senior leader would be a signatory to the plea before the Supreme Court. “We still haven’t zeroed down on who the signatory will be but our application is ready. The application will request the apex court to ensure the strict implementation of the Act and will reason with the court that if the law is scrapped or changed, it will impact the social fabric of the country,” said a senior leader.
“Our application will also quote the Supreme Court ruling of 2019 in the Ayodhya case. The application will be submitted before the court in the first half of next week,” the leader added.
In 2019, in the five-judge Constitution Bench ruling in the Ayodhya case, the court referred to the 1991 law as a part of the “basic structure of the Constitution”. While the law was not directly under challenge then, the court’s observations could be relevant in determining its constitutional validity.
The SP is also preparing a plea, according to party insiders. “We have something in the pipeline. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal is helping us draft the application,” said an SP MP. Sibal is an independent Rajya Sabha MP who was elected with the SP’s support.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court court tagged All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s petition with a series of cases pending before it.
The petitioners have challenged the law on two main grounds. First, according to them, it takes away the power of judicial review by abating claims that existed at the time of passing the law and prohibiting fresh claims in courts. Second, the petitioners argue, the Act is arbitrary in retrospectively picking August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for determining the religious character of a place of worship. Several cross-petitions have sought the strict implementation of the law to maintain communal harmony and preserve the present status of mosques sought to be reclaimed by Hindu groups on the ground that these were temples before being razed by invaders.
While several of these petitions have been pending since 2020, the Centre has not yet submitted its affidavit revealing its stand. Last month, the Supreme Court barred civil courts across the country from registering fresh suits challenging the ownership and title of any place of worship or ordering surveys of disputed religious places until further orders and made it clear that no “effective” orders can be passed. At the time, it gave the government four weeks to file its reply and listed the matter for hearing on February 17.
The Congress, too, had not publicly expressed its views on the matter till recently. First, in a resolution on November 29, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) targeted the BJP for “brazenly violating” the Act. The CWC, which is the Congress’s highest decision-making body, passed a resolution in Belagavi, Karnataka, on December 26 in which it said the party was “firmly committed in letter and spirit” to the Act. The Act had come under “needless and reckless debate”, it added.
Congress insiders said that the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, had directed party leaders to support the Act and not buckle under pressure from the BJP. “It was Rahul Gandhi who made it clear that the party supports the law and is ready to fight in court to save it,” said a senior leader.
The Congress has been facing pressure from Muslims inside and outside the party to back the Act. Several senior Congress leaders from the minority community have raised the issue with the high command, saying if the party wants Muslim votes it must back a law that protects its religious structures.
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