Plea in SC against provisions in Place of Worship Act

By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response to a plea filed before it challenging the validity of certain provisions of a 1991 law, which prohibits the filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.

The plea assumes significance as there has been a demand by some Hindu groups to reclaim religious places at Mathura and Kashi, which are prohibited under the 1991 law. The petition alleges that the 1991 law creates an arbitrary and irrational retrospective cut-off date of August 15, 1947, for maintaining the character of the places of worship or pilgrimage against encroachment done by fundamentalist-barbaric invaders and law-breakers.

A bench of CJI S A Bobde and Justice A S Bopanna issued the notice to the Centre on the plea filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, seeking that Sections 2, 3, 4 of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 be set aside on grounds including that these provisions take away the right of a judicial remedy to reclaim a place of worship of any person or a religious group.The law has made only one exception — on the dispute pertaining to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid at Ayodhya.