New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its order on whether the politically sensitive Babri Masjid land dispute can be settled through mediation.
A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi heard the contesting parties.
The bench, also comprising Justices S.A. Bobde, D.Y. Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S.A. Nazeer, heard submissions from various Hindu and Muslim bodies involved in the matter.
Fourteen appeals have been filed in the apex court against the 2010 Allahabad high court judgment, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77-acre land in Ayodhya be partitioned equally among the three parties – the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.
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During the previous hearing on February 26, the apex court gave the parties eight weeks to examine the translated copies of documents and raise objections, if any. During this time, it wanted to explore the possibility of mediation and considered the possibility of ‘healing relations’.
While some Muslim parties said they were agreeable to the suggestion of a court-appointed mediator to solve the dispute, some Hindu parties, including Ram Lalla Virajmaan, raised objections. They said the process of mediation has failed several times.
Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for a Muslim party, referred to the Allahabad high court verdict and said that mediation was tried earlier and was unsuccessful. Senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan, representing Ram Lalla, said it was averse to mediation and that “we do not want another round of mediation”.
(With PTI inputs)