Supreme Court to hear petitions challenging Places Of Worship Act on Dec 12

New Delhi: A Supreme Court's special bench led by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna would on December 12 take up a batch of petitions challenging validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.

The law enacted by the P V Narasimha Rao government at the height of Ram temple movement is meant to protect status of religious places as existed on August 15, 1947.

A bench of CJI Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Vishwanathan would consider the petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and others on December 12 at 3.30 pm.

The hearing assumes significance as about 20 suits across the country for conducting survey at different religious places including mosque and dargah, which, the Muslim sides claimed, had been in disregard to the provisions of the law.

Recently, Gyanvapi mosque committee filed an intervention application, claiming the challenge to the law has been made with rhetorical and communal claims which could not be entertained by this court and the consequences of it are bound to be drastic.

It had cited Ram Temple case judgement of 2019 by a Constitution bench which said this court cannot entertain claims which stem from actions of the Mughal rulers against Hindu places of worship in a court of law today. 

The apex court had on March 12, 2021 issued notice to the Union government which is yet to file its affidavit in the matter.

On July 11, 2023 the court had said there is no stay on the 1991 law for maintaining status of religious places. However, the court cannot issue a blanket stay on proceedings launched in various courts across the country related to religious places. 

Dealing with Kashi Vishwanath and Gyanvapi mosque dispute, the apex court had also said earlier that the 1991 law would not come in the way of ascertainment of character of a religious places. "Ascertainment of a religious character is not barred by the PoW Act," the court had said.

In his plea, Upadhyay had questioned validity the 1991 Act, which had put a retrospective cut-off date of August 15, 1947 mandating maintaining the character of religious places and barring any court to take up any petition except the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.

The Hindu sides, which had filed suits seeking survey of different mosques or dargah, claimed the provisions of the law were not applicable to any place of worship that is an ancient and historical monument or an archaeological site or remains covered by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 or any dispute with respect to any such matter settled by the parties amongst themselves before its commencement, among others.