INDIA, May 9, 2011 (North India Times): The Supreme Court on Monday ordered status quo on the disputed site of the Ramjanambhoomi/Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and stayed the judgment of the Allahabad High Court. This interim order will enable the devotees to continue worship at the makeshift temple built near the spot where the mosque stood till December 1992.
But the bench, consisting of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice R M Lodha described part of the September 2010 judgment of the high court “strange”, especially the division of the site into three parts. During the half-hour hearing in a crowded courtroom, the judges remarked that “a new dimension was given by the high court as the decree of partition was not sought by the parties. It was not prayed by anyone. It is a strange order,” the Bench said.
“It is a difficult situation, the position is that it (the high court judgment) has created litany of litigation,” the Bench observed.
The Wakf Board and Jamait Ulama-I-Hind want the whole high court judgment to be set aside.
The Ayodhya issue had raised communal passions for more than a decade and led to large-scale riots in several parts of the country, claiming hundreds of lives.