Turning down Shia Wakf Boar’s counsel and senior counsel Kapil Sibbal’s plea that the Babri Masjid demolidation case be heard on 15th July, 2019, the Supreme Court of India postponed the next hearing in the case to 08th Febaruary, 2018 (next year).

Today is the 25th anniversary of demolition of Babri Masjid by ‘Kar Sevaks’ of BJP, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, who razed down the disputed structure at Ayodhya (on 06th December, 1992) near the site where the ‘Ram Mandir’ is proposed. The apex Court, which has been hearing the case, had earlier directed that the issue be resolved by talks between the Hindus and Muslims.

In the mean time, Shias had proposed that the Muslims could ‘allow’ the Hindus to construct the ‘Ram Mandir’ at Ayodhya in return for allocation of land for Muslims to construct a mosque in Lucknow.  When the case was taken up by the apex Court yesterday, Sibal wondered how could the Solicitor General of India Mehta file a voluminous document of 19,000 pages at such a short time and said copies were not provided to them and other petitioners.

“Law and order scenario worsens whenever the case is taken up by the Court; I, therefore, request the Court to postpone the next hearing in the case to July 15, 2019,” he said. Other counsels also pleaded with the Court that the issue be heard by a special 7-Judge Bench. The Supreme Court later postponed the next hearing to 08th February next year, turning down Sibal’s plea to postpone the hearing to 2019.

Shia Wakf Board’s president Wasi Rizvi addressed newsmen later and expressed confidence that the apex Court would accede to their request of constructing a ‘mosque’ at Lucknow in return for not objecting to the construction of ‘Ram Mandir’ by the Hindus at Ayodhya.