Ayodhya Verdict: Highlights of Ram Mandir - Babri Masjid Case | 2019 Supreme Court Judgment

This judgment was noted for it being long-drawn and was found to be driven with a lot of emotions and religious sentiments coming into play, with episodes where any bit of coherence was almost impossible to find. This movement that was motivated with the concept of RamJanmabhoomi at the forefront sparked with the demolishment of the Babri Masjid in 1992 was labelled to be an embodiment of the ‘annexationist propaganda of faith’ and rightly so.

In 16th century, the Babri Masjid was built during the reign of the Mughal Emperor, Babur. It was locally believed that Babur’s Generals demolished a temple that existed in that site before the Masjid was constructed.

Many academicians have argued that local traditions, tales and other beliefs should not be taken into consideration while a decision was made with regards to important matters of land acquisition like this.

The Masjid was unlawfully demolished by the Kar Sevaks in December, 1992, based on the abovementioned local belief.

Thlocal belief regarding Lord Ram’s birth place, was upheld by a 3-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court in 2010. The High Court ordered an equal partition of the site occupied by the Masjid.

In the subsequent year, upon appeals by the Sunni Waqf Board and multiple other parties to the case appealed to the Supreme Court Allahabad High Court’s order was subsequently stayed.

It was fixed by the end of 2017 that February, 2018 would mark the commencement of the final hearing on this case. Another interesting aspect of the case was the importance it laid on documents in Persian and Arabic from the 16th century which proved to be the few sources of information with regards to the occupants of the site which has been a topic of dispute for more than 2 decades now.

Charting a Timeline :
16th Century- Construction of Babri Masjid

1994- In the year 1994, there was a contention raised before thewith regards to the acquisition of land in and around Babri Masjid. It was also subsequently ruled by the apex court that mosques were not essential or integral to Islamic religious practices. It was also added that Namaz could be offered even in the open and that it was not necessary that it had to be in a mosque.

2010- It was decided by the Allahabad High Court in a 2010 ruling that the land was to be divided into 3 parts and this was done in a bid to settle this land title dispute case. However, this decision was not welcomed by the parties involved in the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid case and hence was further appealed before the Supreme Court to reach finality with regards to the issue at hand. This appeal before the Supreme Court was heard by a 3-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI), Dipak Misra and the issues discussed in the 1994 ruling, sprout up, once again.

The Appellant parties to the case requested the case to be referred to a larger bench in order to reconsider the 1994 ruling. However, this request was not taken into consideration and was refused by the Supreme Court. In support to this stand taken by the Supreme Court, they mentioned that the 1994 ruling was not to influence the land title dispute as the later was mainly in the context of acquisition of the land and nothing more.

It is also found that the proposal to build a Ram Mandir at the Ayodhya site was an important promise made by the BJP in their election manifesto. Whatever the decision of the Supreme Court was to be, it was predicted that it would be quite decisive in either providing or not providing sufficient support to the building of the Ram Mandir at the specified site.

The 2010 decision of the Allahabad High Court which voted for a tripartite division of the land under dispute was not satisfactory to all the parties. The whole dispute boils down to one single question as to whether the Babri Masjid was built over a temple which was previously dedicated to Lord Ram.

Ayodhya case in the Supreme Court`s 2019 Landmark Judgment and is also the 2nd longest hearing ever which went on for 40 days.


Rapid Action Force Personnel have been deployed in the state to prevent any outbreak of violence. Prohibitory orders have been issued in Ayodhya considering the safety and security of Ayodhya- Section 144 in The Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973 which is Power to
issue order in urgent cases of nuisance of apprehended danger.

**************************************************************
For more such insights you can subscribe to My Course
Our Courses:
Course on CLAT UG (LLB): https://learn.finology.in/courses/leg...
Course on CLAT PG (LLM): https://learn.finology.in/App/courses...
Instagram:   / finologylegal  
My Other Courses: https://learn.finology.in
Blog- https://blog.finology.in/Legal-news/A...

*************************************
Instagram: finologylegal