'Made no submission that may disturb communal harmony'

Hindu parties on Tuesday asserted in the Supreme Court that they never made any submission during the hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri masjid land dispute which may disturb "communal harmony" and "peace" but claimed arguments of their rivals bore a communal character.

They also termed as "unwarranted" and "unfortunate", the submission of Muslim parties that the archeological report is trashed and said that now they allege that the excavated wall was of an Idgah.

Questioning the submissions, the senior lawyer for deity 'Ram Lalla' said it then meant that Mughal emperor Babur came and demolished the Idgah and erected the mosque and it also countered their earlier stand that the masjid was built on vacant land.

The submissions by the Hindu parties evoked sharp reactions from the Muslim side which said that they did not say anything which raises communal passion and moreover, how did the Muslims know before the digging of the site that an Idgah existed underneath the mosque.

The arguments and counter-arguments resulted in a high-pitch verbal duel between the senior advocates appearing for both the sides before a five-bench Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi which concluded 35th day of the hearing on the contentious legal matter.

"The uncalled-for comments were made by them (Muslim parties) during the hearing and we never made any such submissions which were against communal peace and harmony," senior lawyer C S Vaidyanathan, appearing for the deity, said, adding that the comments like "Kaushlaya's labour room" have been made by them.

"It is unfortunate that the (Sunni) Wakf Board characterised the Allahabad High Court judgement as an "informed guess", he said evoking sharp reaction from senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, counsel for the Muslim parties, who retorted, "I have not characterised, but the judges themselves have characterised it (judgement) as informed guess".

"We avoid submissions that could lead to communal divide," Dhavan said, adding that "We said acts were illegal and nothing on communal divide."