Lucknow: After 28 years, the landmark judgment in the disputed Babri Masjid demolition case of Ayodhya is set to be announced by Judge Surendra Yadav of the special CBI court in Lucknow on Wednesday.
In the case, 49 people were accused, out of which 17 people have died, while 32 surviving accused have been ordered to appear in court by the judge Yadav.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, and Uma Bharti are also among the accused.
However, given the age of many involved in the case and the epidemic, who will be present in the court on the day of the judgment remains to be seen
According to sources, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Vinay Katiyar, and Pawan Pandey may appear in the court.
History of Babri demolition case
On December 6, 1992, the Supreme Court had ordered that every one of India can participate in the Kar seva for which the number wasn't set. But when the kar save started, there were some anti-social elements, due to which the atmosphere there was disturbed.
Immediately after the violence ensued, the first FIR was given at 6:15 in Ram Janmabhoomi police station.
Lakhs of unknown kar sevaks were accused, however, no person or anyone was booked. Immediately after this, after 10 minutes at 6:25, another FIR was registered against LK Advani and others which was lodged by Ganga Prasad Tiwari, who was in charge of the then Ram Janmabhoomi outpost.
When the second FIR was filed, its investigation went to the local police. On its second day, it was further transferred to CBCID.
Kalyan Singh, the then Chief Minister at the time, resigned. President's rule came into force in this region. From that time on, political activities had started in this case.
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The CBCID discussed this, in which they filed a charge sheet after this, the entire case was transferred to CBI.
Subsequently, the trial was conducted in two parts, one in Rae Bareli and the other in Lucknow. The case was going on in Rae Bareli related to the big leaders, while others in Lucknow. But in the meantime, the Supreme Court shifted the case from Rae Bareli to Lucknow and after that, the trial was completed by cross-examination. Now on September 30, the hour of judgment has come to a close.
The surviving accused are:
- LK Advani
- Murali Manohar Joshi
- Sudhir Kakkar
- Satish Pradhan
- Ram Chandra Khatri
- Santosh Dubey
- Kalyan Singh
- Uma Bharti
- Ram Vilas Vedanti
- Vinay Katiyar
- Prakash Sharma
- Gandhi Yadav
- Jai Bhan Singh
- Lallu Singh
- Kamlesh Tripathi
- Brij Bhushan Singh
- Ramji Gupta
- Mahant Nritya Gopal Das
- Champat Rai
- Sakshi Maharaj
- Vinay Kumar Rai
- Naveen Bhai Shukla
- Dharmadas
- Jai Bhagwan Goyal
- Amarnath Goyal
- Sadhvi Ritambhara
- Pawan Pandey
- Vijay Bahadur Singh
- RM Srivastava
- Dharmendra Singh Gurjar
- Om Prakash Pandey
- Acharya Dharmendra
The accused who have died are: Paramhans Ramchandra Das, Vinod Kumar Vats, Ram Narayan Das, DB Rai, Lakshmi Narayan Das, Hargovind Singh, Ramesh Pratap Singh, Devendra Bahadur, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Moreshwar Saway, Mahant Avaidyanath Mahamandaleshwar Jagdish Muni Maharaj, Baikunth Lal Sharma, Satish Kumar Nagar, and Bala Sahab Thackeray.
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Timeline:
After the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992, two cases were filed on the same day in Faizabad. In one FIR, criminal FIRs were registered against 49 people including LK Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Bal Thackeray, Uma Bharti in the FIR and in the second FIR.
- In 1993, the investigation of this high profile case was given to the CBI. The trial started in Lucknow court against Rae Bareli and Karsevaks against 49 leaders associated with the BJP alliance. After this, in October, the CBI filed a charge sheet, combining both the Rae Bareli and Lucknow cases, and all other leaders including LK Advani were accused of criminal conspiracy.
- In 1996, the UP government issued a notification to run both the cases together. After this, the CBI court of Lucknow added a criminal conspiracy case in both the cases which were challenged by Advani and other accused.
- On 4 May 2001, a special CBI court dropped the criminal conspiracy charge against Advani and others.
- In 2003, CBI filed a charge sheet. The Rae Bareli court said that there was not enough evidence against Advani. The High Court intervened and the trial continued against him and others against criminal conspiracy.
- On 23 May 2010, Allahabad High Court dropped the charge of criminal conspiracy against LK Advani and other accused and CBI went to Supreme Court in 2012. On which the Supreme Court once directed to speedy trial by reinstating the criminal conspiracy.
- In its judgment on April 2017, the Supreme Court directed the CBI special court to complete the hearing of the entire case within two years. The trial in this case was going on in two courts of Lucknow and Rae Bareli but the Supreme Court in its order on April 2017 directed to complete the trial together by including Rae Bareli case in Lucknow itself.
- On 21 May 2017, every day the hearing of this case starts LK Advani files a statement in the court for bail to all the accused. But due to the Corona epidemic, people like LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi recorded their statements in court through video conferencing during the lockdown.
- On 8 May 2020, the Supreme Court ordered the hearing to be completed by 31 August. But due to the Corona epidemic, its date was extended till 30 September.
- CBI Special Court Judge Surendra Yadav completed the hearing of the case on 1 September 2020 after hearing arguments, testimony, and cross-examination of all the parties and started writing the judgment of the case from 2 September. After this, on September 16, Judge Surendra Yadav announced the date of the decision in this historic case as 30 September.
