SC directs daily hearing in Ayodhya dispute from Aug 6

The Supreme Court on Friday decided to conduct day-to-day hearing from August 6 in Ayodhya dispute case after noting the mediation proceedings undertaken on its direction by the Justice F M I Kalifullah-headed panel has not resulted in a “final settlement” to resolve the matter related to Babri Masjid and Ram temple.

A Constitution bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer said the lead counsel may for convenience indicate pleadings and evidence on which they propose to rely upon during the arguments.

The court said the suit number 3 and 5 of 'Ram Lalla' and 'Nirmohi Akhara' respectively would be taken up first in the hearing.

During the brief hearing, Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for legal representative of M Siddiq, one of the plaintiffs, said that there were several interlocutory applications which must be heard first. The court, however, said it would prefer to begin the hearing in the main matter.

As soon as the hearing began, the court started dictating orders, saying the mediation proceedings have not resulted in any final settlement, so it would start hearing the arguments from August 6 on the day-to-day basis until the arguments get completed.

On Thursday, the mediation panel submitted its report to the court.

Spiritual guru and founder of Art of Living foundation Sri Sri Ravishankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu, a renowned mediator, are two members of the panel of mediators.

The court had directed for keeping the contents of the report of the panel set up on March 8 confidential. The media were also restrained from reporting the mediation proceedings.

A batch of appeals against the Allahabad High Court's 2010 judgement for the division of the disputed land among Ram Lalla, Sunni Waqf Board and Nirmohi Akhara in three equal parts, is pending before the apex court.