Why link Ram Mandir with elections? PM Modi questions Kapil Sibal

Modi questioned Sibal as to why is the Congress leader linking the Ram Mandir case with elections. "Congress MP Kapil Sibal argued in SC yesterday to postpone the hearing on Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya till 2019. Why does he have to link Ram Mandir with elections? Is such thinking proper? Congress should answer." the PM said.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the final hearing in the long-pending Ayodhya-Ram Janambhoomi case till February 8, 2018 after a specially constituted bench sat a day before the 25th anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition, reports said.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and Abdul Nazeer will hear the case.

The dispute was triggered after the 16th Century mosque – Babri Masjid – was demolished by thousands of activists associated with right wing groups on December 6, 1992.

The specially constituted Supreme Court bench will hear a total of 13 appeals filed against the 2010 judgement of the Allahabad High Court in four civil suits.

The High court, in 2010, had decided that the disputed land of 2.77 acre will be divided in three-way among the parties — the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara, and the Lord Ram Lalla. The court ordered each party a third of the land at the site. After that the stakeholders in the case had moved the apex court.

Calling the verdict "strange, the Supreme Court,  in May 2011, stayed the operation of the order. It observed that the decree of partition was not sought by the parties… not prayed by anyone”.

Recently a group of civil rights activists also moved the apex court seeking intervention in the Ayodhya dispute and urged it to consider the issue saying it is not just a dispute over property but has several other aspects which would have far-reaching effects on the “secular fabric of the country”.

Image: twitter.com/BJP4India