Babri Masjid Sacrificed at the Altar of Judiciary
(By Haider Abbas)
The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, has decided to pause ‘certain’ clauses of the blatantly anti-Constitution Waqf Act-2025, until May 5, which will stop government to not to appoint any new member to the Central Waqf Council and state Waqf Boards, and also not to change the character of any Waqf-by-user property either notified or registered before the Act came into force, which has triggered BJP MP Nishikant Dubey to solicit CJI to be responsible for ‘civil wars’ in the country. SC Bar Association has petitioned a contempt action against him. It may be easily remembered that throughout the Ramjanambhumi versus Babri Masjid, Ayodhya case, BJP affiliates had time and again reiterated that they would never abide by any judgement in favour of Babri Masjid. BJP typically has now distanced itself from Dubey’s stand. But, precisely, the last four decades, have however, been witness to the most blatant and open disdain for judiciary by the same aficionados.
There is a time-tested policy to hold judiciary at ransom, at the altar of Muslim issues. There is no any doubt left in it. Muslims, the biggest ‘orphans’ in the country, with nothing at their stake, can only hold to guarantees enshrined in the constitution, a document which its chief architect BR Ambedkar himself wanted to burn! BR Ambedkar was far more far-sighted, as he had foreseen, the incoming injustices to be meted to Muslims. In Rajya Sabha on September 2, 1953, he had warned, “if our people want to carry on, they must not forget that there are majorities and there are minorities (read Muslims) , and they simply cannot ignore the minorities by saying, “Oh, no. To recognise you is to harm democracy.” I should say that the greatest harm will come by injuring the minorities.” He has been proven right, more particularly, after 2014, when BJP PM Narendra Modi, has taken over the country. There would be a book worth 5000 pages on atrocities perpetrated on Muslims since at least the last decade. Notwithstanding ‘judiciary’ which is the only vestige of hope left for Muslims.
Muslims the powerless, besieged and cornered community has and had to bear the brunt of judiciary. The hapless community looked in vain, the day when four-Supreme Court judges in January 2018, a year before general election, sat in SC premises to seek ‘justice’ as democracy was at stake. The incumbent CJI Ranjan Gogoi was one of them. Nothing happened. The Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi should have rightly sought the resignation of the then Union Law Minister Ravi Shanker Prasad, called for agitation to uphold the honour of SC but fissiled it out. The Ayodhya case was already in SC.
PM Narendra Modi, as per BJP oriented sources, did not miss it, he after 10 months, sought to see the Court No. 1 which Ranjan Gogoi presided. Both were alone. Modi, then, gave him a paper, high lighting the request Gogoi had made to him or his senior Cabinet Minister to not to transfer his ‘samdhi’ Justice Valmiki Mehta, who was involved in corruption, which was found to be true, and hence, was transferred to Gujarat High Court, by the SC collegium headed by the then CJI Justice TS Thakur in 2016. There was also a list of the enormous rise in wealth of his son-in-law Tanmay Mehta too. Gogoi fondly refers it as ‘visitor creates a flutter’ in his autobiography Justice for the Judge.
The issue was flagged by retired CJI Justice Markandey Katju in February 2019, in which he had questioned Gogoi’s silence. ‘Why is the Ramjanmabhumi case being adjourned again and again on one pretext or the other? And why are dates being fixed for fixing a date? Again, a mystery. Is this some kind of quid pro quo? Only Gogoi can answer’. Gogoi was not to answer. He answered by whipping the old scapegoat-Muslims! He gave a 5-0 judgement in favour of Hindu side, in November 2019, despite the fact, that Babri Masjid was never raised on the demolished site of Lord Ram Temple in 1528.
Ranjan Gogoi was satiated with a Rajya Sabha seat. Since, the last five years, there had never been any reference to any investigating team hounding Tanmay Mehta, No Enforcement Directorate, no Central Bureau of Investigation or Special Investigation Team or any Income Tax inquiry worth its name against him, unlike the whole Opposition leaders facing the ire of such bodies, almost on daily basis. How well is democracy thriving! Justice Mehta passed-away in March 2019.
Gogoi’s second in succession CJI Justice DY Chandrachud, who was also a part of the 5-0 team, shocked the nation when he invited Modi to his house over Ganpati Puja (September 2024). Never has such a scene ever witnessed in India. He is credited to have written a large chunk of the Ayodhya verdict, and later confessed, to have prayed to deity to help find a solution (October 2024). The solution was to be in favour of the Hindu side. Here, it smacks of a reflection, that Faizabad (now Ayodhya) District Judge, KM Pandey had a similar divine-direction from of the presence of a monkey, a Lord Hanuman incarnate, before he had ordered the opening of the Babri Masjid locks on February 1, 1986. Babri Masjid had remained locked since December 22/23, 1949. Muslims, filed a review, which CJI Justice SA Bobde dismissed in five-minutes.
But, Chandrachud made it well-and-clear, that praying to deity does not mean judiciary to become partisan and that justice has to be dispensed strictly on the basis of law! He went many steps further to Gogoi, and observed that Places of Worship Act 1991, which had guaranteed that every religious place will retain its status-quo as it existed on August 15, 1947, except Babri Masjid, ‘does not preclude ascertaining the religious character of a place of worship’ and permitted the survey of Gyanvapi mosque in Benaras (May 2022). This observation emboldened the litigants, all across the nation, which led to a surge in litigations over claims of a hidden temple beneath every mosque, worth its name, in whole of the nation. The exercise was halted after CJI Sanjiv Khanna ordered a stay on such petitions.
As for Gogoi, who had a chance to come out unvarnished of allegations on his ‘samdhi’ at least in his autobiography, instead chose to let them remain dormant. History will bear witness to more intrigues to tumble out in the coming years, as the Ayodhya judgement will have reverberations for centuries to come. But, then, after all said and done, Babri Masjid was ‘therefore and thereafter’ given to the Hindu side. No more takers on it.
The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and a political analyst
The views expressed by the author are personel
