Oldest litigant favoured out of court settlement

The oldest Ayodhya title dispute litigant Mohammed Hashim Ansari, who died last year, had always favoured an out-of-court settlement of the dispute. 

Ansari, who had become a plaintiff in the case in 1949, used to blame the politicians for the lingering dispute.

Ansari not only advocated for an out-of-court settlement of the dispute, but also made sincere efforts toward the same. During his lifetime he met different parties in the title suits as well as Hindu religious leaders in Ayodhya several times to arrive at a mutually agreed solution of the vexed issue, though without success.

Ansari had also publicly declared that he did not want to see ‘Ram Lala’ (the idol of Lord Rama) in the tent (the makeshift Ram Temple at the disputed land in Ayodhya, which is in a tent).