New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to constitute afresh the five-judge Constitution bench to hear on January 29 the politically-sensitive Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land title dispute in Ayodhya after a judge, Justice U.U. Lalit, recused himself from the hearing.
Justice Lalit, who was part of the five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, “expressed his disinclination to participate in the hearing any further” and opted himself out of the contentious matter.
The apex court said, since Justice Lalit has opted out of the hearing in the matter, there was no option left but to adjourn the case “to fix a date of hearing and to draw up a time schedule for hearing of the case”.
Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for a Muslim party, said, Justice Lalit had appeared as a lawyer for former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh in a connected matter “sometime in the year 1997”.
He said Singh, as then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had “failed in his promise to maintain the status quo” over the disputed structure at Ayodhya which was demolished on December 6, 1992.
