​Permissive no more: on places of worship and the Supreme Court’s interim order

The Supreme Court’s interim order halting the registration of fresh suits across the country regarding disputes of places of worship is a welcome departure from the permissive approach of the judiciary in recent times towards such motivated litigation. A Division Bench, headed by the Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, has done well to stop the flow of litigation and interim orders, including those that allow ‘surveys’ of such sites and structures, while it deals with the challenges to the validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. The order signifies a deep understanding that this is not about a set of civil disputes but the future of the country’s secular character. It is amply clear to right-thinking citizens that the law, which freezes the religious character of all places of worship in the country as they were on the day of Independence, would want this legislation to remain on the statute book as a bulwark against elements that want to perpetuate the religious divide caused by such disputes. It is unfortunate, and even condemnable, that courts of law have failed to block these suits at a nascent stage by invoking the bar under this law. Instead, they have been allowing applications for surveys, either disregarding the Act and the Court’s endorsement of its necessity in past judgments or ruling that the statutory bar does not apply to them.

In the name of reclaiming religious sites lost to invaders, several groups and purported devotees have been moving civil courts and obtaining questionable orders for surveying mosques for evidence that they may have been built on the ruins of destroyed temples. The success of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was largely due to the political patronage enjoyed by its spearheads, and a final verdict from the Court, which handed over the disputed land to the Hindu litigants while condemning the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque in December 1992. That the vandals involved in the demolition were acquitted, without any further appeal, added to the triumphalism that marks this movement for altering the status of mosques. This has given rise to further claims in Varanasi, Mathura, and, more recently, Sambhal, among other places that house mosques dating back to the 16th century. A notable feature of this permissive judicial attitude is the complete absence of any understanding of the history of the temple movement that was largely political in character. That judges could entertain obviously baleful and ill-motivated cases is a great cause of concern for those rightfully invested in the secular nature of the country. The criminal imprint on the nation’s fabric left by political movements in a religious garb should not be forgotten.