New Delhi: Senior BJP leaders L.K. Advani, M.M. Joshi and Uma Bharti besides nine others will be tried for conspiring to demolish the Babri mosque in UP’s Ayodhya in 1992, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.
Another accused, Kalyan Singh, who was the state chief minister at the time of the demolition, has constitutional immunity since he is Rajasthan’s Governor. But charges would be framed against him once he leaves office, the court said. The court accepted the CBI’s plea for revival of conspiracy charges — dropped 16 years ago by a lower court on technical grounds — against them and ordered daily hearing by a Lucknow court, setting a two-year deadline for the trial to be completed.
A bench of justices Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Rohinton Nariman allowed the CBI’s appeal filed in 2011 during the UPA’s rule against the dropping of conspiracy charges.
Secular fabric of nation shaken: Supreme Court
A Rae Bareli court is trying Mr Advani and others for inflammatory speeches. After the addition of conspiracy charges, the case will shift to Lucknow where kar sevaks are being tried for the actual demolition. Mr Advani and others will be sentenced to five years in jail if found guilty in the joint trial. There will not be a fresh trial.
Hindu mobs had demolished the 16th century mosque, claiming it was built on the birthplace of god Ram, triggering some of India’s worst riots since Partition.
Justice Nariman said those accused of crimes, which shook the secular fabric of the Constitution almost 25 years ago, have not been brought to book largely because of the conduct of the CBI in not pursuing the prosecution in a joint trial, and because of curable technical defects not cured by the Uttar Pradesh government.
The court rejected Mr Advani’s submission that the trial at Rae Bareli cannot be shifted. Once the trial is shifted, the Lucknow court will frame the additional conspiracy charges under Section 120-B of the IPC within four weeks against the four and others, including Vinay Katiyar and Sadhvi Ritambara.
The court said there would not be any adjournments and the judge would not be transferred till the verdict was delivered. The CBI will ensure some prosecution witnesses remain present every day during the trial.
Justifying the joint trial, the court said the evidence for all the offences was almost the same.
The Supreme Court also faulted the Allahabad high court for upholding the lower court order to drop conspiracy charges on the ground that only the demolition case — and not the conspiracy one — had been transferred to the CBI.
