Ayodhya case, related to the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute, won’t be taken up for hearing by the five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court on January 29 due to the non-availability of Justice SA Bobde.
This was informed by the additional registrar of the Supreme Court by a circular.
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Justice SA Bobde was among the five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court which was reconstituted this week by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi to hear the Ayodhya case.
The Supreme Court had, on January 10, decided to reconstitute the five-judge bench to hear the Ayodhya title dispute case, deferring the hearing to January 29.
On January 10, the bench of five judges, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was told that Justice UU Lalit, one of the members of the bench, had in 1997 appeared as a lawyer for former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh in one of the matters related to the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute.
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Subsequently, Justice Lalit recused himself from the hearing informing the bench.
The court said that a report be submitted by January 29 as to how much time it would require for translating the documents and the case material.
The apex court on October 29 last year fixed the matter in the first week of January before the “appropriate bench”.
When the matter was taken up on January 4, there was no indication that the case would be referred to a constitution bench as the apex court had simply said further orders in the matter would be passed on January 10 by “the appropriate bench, as may be constituted”.
The top court had also rejected a plea for an urgent hearing on the matter.