A statewide high alert was issued for Wednesday. While plainclothes policemen will be on duty in Ayodhya, 2,000 policemen will be deployed to the building that houses the “Ayodhya Prakaran Court” in the former High Court building in Kaiserbagh here. Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel have been stationed in 25 sensitive districts.
If convicted, indicted saffron veterans such as LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Champat Rai Bansal, Ram Vilas Vedanti, Dharmadas and Dr. Satish Pradhan will they would face a maximum prison sentence of up to five years.
Seventeen named defendants, including Bal Thackeray, Ashok Singhal, Mahant Avaidyanath, Giriraj Kishore and Vijayaraje Scindia died during the course of the trial.
If the former CM from Uttar Pradesh Kalyan singh, BJP deputy Sakshi Maharaj and then Ayodhya district magistrate RN Srivastava are sentenced, they can receive a maximum of three years in prison. The remaining defendants, including BJP deputies Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Lallu Singh and 17 others, also face charges under Section 395 (committing dacoity) that can lead to life imprisonment if the court records their conviction.
Should BJP MPs Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Lallu Singh and Sakshi Maharaj receive a prison sentence of two years or more, their membership in parliament may be in doubt. All defendants, if found guilty, can appeal to the higher court to challenge the verdict.
There were 49 defendants in the case, in addition to thousands of named kar sevaks in two separate FIRs housed at the Ram Janmabhoomi (RJB) police station on the day of the demolition. The CBI took over these FIRs when it began investigating the case.
The additional district and session judge (Ayodhya affairs), SK Yadav, who has heard the case every day since May 2017, had asked all the defendants to be present in court when he pronounced the sentence at 10 a.m. to. Wednesday. However, sources told TOI that Advani, Uma Bharti, MM Joshi, Satish Pradhan and Mahant Nritya Gopal Das are unlikely to be present when their fate is decided. Your attorneys will likely file their waiver requests before 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Although Advani, Joshi and Pradhan are likely to seek the old-age exemption, Bharti has been found to test positive for Covid and is admitted to a hospital in Uttarakhand. Nritya Gopal Das also tested positive for Covid in Mathura when she was there Janmashtami puja. Kalyan Singh, who was admitted to a Ghaziabad hospital after becoming infected with the virus a few days ago, has arrived in Lucknow and is likely to be present in court.
“The court can pass judgment even in the absence of a defendant facing trial. In such a condition, if the conviction is recorded, the court can issue NBW seeking the presence of the defendants. Arun sinha he told TOI.
The special judge Surendra Kumar Yadav, on May 30, 2017, had brought charges against Advani, Joshi, Bharti, Katiyar and Ritambhara for conspiracy under Section 120 B of the IPC read with sections 147, 149, 153 (a), 153 (b) and 505 (1) (b) of IPC.
Nritya Gopal, Vedanti, Bansal, Dharmadas and Pradhan face charges under Section 295 of the IPC in addition to Sections 147, 149, 153 (a), 153 (b) and 505 (1) (b).
There will be strict security in and around the CBI special court. The CBI and defense attorneys separately submitted up to 850 pages of their written arguments.
Wednesday’s verdict will be the last in the term of service of Special Judge SK Yadav, whose term was extended by the Supreme Court when he retired on September 30, 2019, until the verdict is rendered before September 30, 2020.
Exactly 10 years ago, on September 30, 2010, a three-judge tribunal of the Allahabad High Court had rendered the verdict in the lawsuit for Ayodhya’s title, which was later challenged in the Supreme Court. On Tuesday evening, Lucknow Police Commissioner Sujeet Pandey visited the court premises to assess the situation. “We are prepared. Special teams and routes have been laid out to transport the accused,” Pandey told TOI.
Police said only attorneys associated with the case and witnesses could enter court on Wednesday.
The DGP (headquarters) will monitor sensitive districts such as Varanasi, Prayagraj, Ayodhya, Kanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Aligarh and Mathura.
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