Plea in SC challenges validity of law prohibiting claims to places of worship

Months after the Ayodhya verdict, an organisation of Hindu priests have approached the Supreme Court, challenging validity of a 1991 law, which prohibited filing of a suit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.

Lucknow-based Vishwa Bhadra Pujari Purohit Mahasangh contended that Section 4 of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 violated Article 14, 15, 25, 26 and 29(1) of the Constitution and the principles of secularism.

"Parliament by the provision has created a cut off date with retrospective effect to implement the Act, since August 15, 1947 declaring that the character of a place of worship as was on that date shall be maintained," their plea, filed by advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, said.

The law also stated that no suit or any proceeding would lie in any court including High Court in respect of any dispute against encroachment of religious properties made by unsocial elements or by law breakers at any point of time before August 15, 1947 and such proceeding shall stand abated.

The petitioner, among others, contended Parliament cannot restrain Hindu devotees to get back their religious places of worship through judicial process and cannot make any law which takes away or abridges the vested religious right of devotees and cannot make any law with retrospective effect.

The petition assumed significance as there have been demands to resume litigation on Kashi-Mathura, related to temples of Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna respectively, in Uttar Pradesh.

Notably, the Ayodhya dispute was excluded from the ambit of 1991 law due to pendency of the dispute before the cut off date of August 15, 1947. The top court's five-judge bench had on November 9, 2019 unanimously ruled in favour of Hindus by allowing building of a Ram temple at Ayodhya, recognising it as the birth place of Lord Ram.

The petitioner claimed that the 1991 law deprived the right of Hindu Community under Article 26 of the Constitution from maintaining and managing the religious properties belonging to a deity usurped by members of other community.

It also took away the remedy of Hindus to take back the places of worship and property attached thereto through court which originally belonged to a deity, and worship was being continuously performed by devotees in number of ways.