Supreme Court Orders Mediation to ‘Permanently’ resolve Ayodhya Dispute

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Supreme Court of India today referred the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi land dispute to a court-appointed and monitored mediation for a "permanent solution". Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that the mediation proceedings would be confidential.

The Court constituted a panel headed by Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Khaliifulah (Retd) of the Supreme Court as the chairman, and Sriram Panchu, senior advocate & mediator and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spiritual leader & founder – Art of Living Foundation, as its members. It has also granted liberty to the mediators to co-opt other members to the panel.

The mediation proceedings will be held in Faizabad. The Court has also asked the media not to report the proceedings of the mediation.

A five-judge constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S A Nazeer had pushed for mediation as a means to resolve the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi land dispute and to heal the hearts and minds of those involved.

During submissions on March 06, 2019, Justice Bobde had observed that the Court was only concerned about the present state of the land dispute and not the history of the place.

Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi land dispute case

The dispute over a plot of land measuring 2.77 acres, which houses the Babri mosque, in the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, is about whether the 16^th century mosque was built on top of a Ram temple after demolishing or modifying it.

The current appeals in the Supreme Court were filed against a 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment delivered in four civil suits, suggesting that the 2.77-acre land in Ayodhya be partitioned equally among the three parties – the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.