NEW DELHI: The Congress party on Thursday moved the Supreme Court to seek the top court’s intervention in the cases filed against the validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991.
The 1991 act brought by the Congress party-led Narasimha Rao government preserves the religious character of religious places as they existed on August 15, 1947.
The law was formulated during the Ramjanmabhoomi movement when a disputed mosque in Ayodhya was brought down by the protestors.
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The Ayodhya Ram temple, however, was placed out of the preview of the act.
Last year, the Supreme Court said that no fresh suits disputing the religious character of structures could be registered till it decided on the validity of the Act.
In the significant order, a three-judge bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna, and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan also barred all courts from issuing any effective interim or final orders, including directives for surveys, in ongoing cases involving existing religious structures.
The Supreme Court was informed that 18 lawsuits were pending across the country concerning 10 mosques or shrines.
The bench also provided the central government with four weeks to submit an affidavit in response to a series of petitions challenging specific provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
What is Places of Worship Act?
The 1991 Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act prohibits conversion of places of worship, provides for the maintenance of religious character as existed on Aug 15, 1947. The Act, however, made an exception for the Ram Janmabhoomi site, which formed the foundation of the Supreme Court’s 2019 verdict in the Ayodhya case, granting the disputed land at Ayodhya to the child deity Ram Lalla.
What do petitions say?
Petitions argue that the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act was arbitrary, contending that: a) There was no valid justification for establishing August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date, and b) No logical connection exists between India’s political independence, the formation of the Republic, and addressing the civilizational conflict arising from the colonial suppression of Hindu identity and the cultural dominance imposed by Islamic invaders.
