IWC Judge SK Yadav had ordered the 32 surviving defendants on 16 September to remain present in court on the day of sentencing. Among those accused are former Deputy Prime Minister Advani, former Union Ministers Joshi and Uma Bharti, former Prime Minister of Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Singh, as well as Vinay Katiyar and Sadhvi Rithambara.
With Bharti and Singh convalescing in separate hospitals after the coronavirus infection, it was not immediately known whether they would be present in court at the time the order was issued. Singh, during whose tenure as Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister the disputed structure was demolished, was put on trial in September last year after his term as governor (of Rajasthan) ended. Champat Rai, the trust’s general secretary in charge of building the Ram temple, is also among those charged.
With the Supreme Court setting August 31 as the deadline and then extending it by a month for the CBI court to render its verdict, the trial court began the daily hearing to complete the task on time. The central agency presented 351 witnesses and 600 documents as evidence in court. 48 people were charged, but 17 died during the course of the trial.
The trial on the serious criminal conspiracy charges began against them after it was dropped by the trial court in 2001. The verdict was upheld by the Allahabad High Court in 2010, but the high court ordered the restoration of the conspiracy charge. against them on April 19, 2017. The high court ordered a daily hearing in the high-profile case and ordered the special judge to wrap it up in two years.
The conspiracy charge is in addition to the charges against him for promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion for which they are already facing trial. The defendants also face charges of having made claims “detrimental to national integration and of wounding or desecrating a place of worship.” The other charges against him include engaging in “willful and malicious” acts intended to outrage religious sentiments, making statements that lead to public harm, riots and illegal gatherings. The IWC argued that the defendants conspired and instigated ‘kar sevaks’ to demolish the 16th century mosque. But the defendants have pleaded not guilty and maintained that there is no evidence to prove their guilt and claimed that they were implicated by the then congressional government in the Center as a political revenge.
The Babri Masjid was demolished in December 1992 by “kar sevaks” who claimed that the mosque in Ayodhya was built on the site of an ancient Ram temple. In a significant ruling last year, the Supreme Court assigned the disputed site in Ayodhya to the construction of a Ram temple, while calling the demolition of the mosque a violation of the rule of law. An alternate five-acre site was marked in the city to build a mosque.
Before the 2017 high court verdict, two sets of cases were being heard in Lucknow and Raebareli. The trial of the first case involving anonymous ‘kar sevaks’ was taking place in a Lucknow court, while the second set of cases involving the eight VVIP, including Advani, Joshi, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Ashok Singhal, Katiyar , Uma Bharti, Giriraj Kishore and Sadhvi Ritambhara, were passing in a Raebareli court. The superior court, by reinstating the criminal conspiracy charge, had ordered the leverage of two cases related to the demolition and had also ordered the trial to be concluded in two years.
.
