SC to listen to on February 17 Owaisi’s plea in search of implementation of Locations of Worship Act | India Information

The legislation, which was handed in the course of the tenure of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, was a response to the risky Ram temple motion of the Nineties. It prohibits the alteration of the spiritual nature of any spiritual web site and serves to forestall the re-opening of historic disputes relating to locations of worship, significantly these linked to the interval of India’s colonial previous. Notably, the legislation excludes the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute from its purview, a matter that was resolved by the Supreme Court docket in 2019.

The petition comes amid a rising variety of instances the place Hindu litigants have sought the reclamation of mosques and dargahs, claiming they had been initially temples that had been demolished by invaders centuries in the past. Owaisi’s counsel, Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, pointed to cases wherein courts had ordered surveys of mosques following such claims, exacerbating issues in regards to the legislation’s uneven enforcement.

The bench, led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, indicated that Owaisi’s plea could be thought-about together with a number of ongoing instances associated to the Locations of Worship Act. In a associated order on December 12, the Court docket had restrained all decrease courts from listening to contemporary instances or issuing interim rulings relating to the reclaiming of spiritual websites. This contains the contentious problem of mosques and dargahs, which have turn into flashpoints for spiritual tensions.

Throughout the December 12 listening to, Chief Justice Khanna referred to the landmark 2019 Ayodhya judgment, which invoked the Locations of Worship Act to emphasize the significance of preserving the established order of spiritual websites. The judgment said, “The legislation speaks to our historical past and to the way forward for the nation. Independence was a watershed second to heal the injuries of the previous. Historic wrongs can’t be remedied by the individuals taking the legislation into their very own palms.”

The Locations of Worship Act has lengthy been seen as a key piece of laws aimed toward safeguarding communal concord by making certain that disputes over spiritual websites don’t ignite additional divisions. Nonetheless, its software has turn into more and more contentious, significantly as new instances emerge difficult the legislation’s provisions and the standing of spiritual websites throughout the nation. Because the Supreme Court docket prepares to listen to these instances within the coming weeks, the way forward for the Locations of Worship Act, and its position in sustaining peace between spiritual communities, stays unsure.