Supreme Court draws the line
Directive to lower courts to keep off pleas seeking to undermine the Places of Worship Act is timely
The Supreme Court’s order restraining lower courts from admitting or passing orders in any fresh plea seeking surveys of mosques to determine whether temples lie beneath them until the apex court is hearing the 1991 Places of Worship Act case is a landmark intervention that comes not a moment too soon.
Over the past two years, a flurry of pleas arguing that Islamic holy shrines were built after demolishing temples, and therefore should be replaced, has inflamed communal passions, unearthed long-buried sectarian grudges, and threatened to irreparably rupture the social fabric. Unfortunately, most of these disturbances came on the back of lower court orders, as exemplified by the violence during a court-ordered survey in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal town last month that killed four people and injured 20 others.
The 1991 law — which was drafted at the height of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and locked the religious character of shrines as they existed at the time of Independence — was enacted to forestall this precise eventuality. But it appeared increasingly effete as petitioner after petitioner found ways around its guardrails, prompting new sets of disputes to mushroom — from Varanasi and Mathura to Badaun and Ajmer. Even the Taj Mahal wasn’t spared.
This newspaper has repeatedly called for a decision on the applicability of the 1991 law at the earliest possible juncture because this is key to expeditiously resolving disputes. It is in no one’s interest, and certainly not the country’s, to let such sensitive issues fester, undoing the work done by the country’s founders in building a multi-cultural, multi-faith democracy. The top court’s commendable move on Thursday kindles hope that the unfortunate trend of incendiary and communal petitions can be arrested, and a considered, deliberative and transparent process can take its place. The Court’s direction will also prompt the Union government to make its stand clear on this important issue, something it has avoided doing even as the pleas acquired a distinctly political edge.
The apex court has taken a momentous step. It must now consider deciding on the case swiftly and laying down the law once and for all. The Places of Worship Act represented a compromise struck to avert hurling India into a cauldron of communal disputes that holds the potential to tarnish its justifiable reputation as a tolerant and diverse republic. It was passed after extensive debate in Parliament and then was endorsed by the apex court in its 2019 Ram Temple verdict. It deserves its day in court.