Babri Masjid Case: Allahabad HC Dismisses Appeal Against Acquittal Of Advani, Others

The appeal was filed by Haji Mahboob Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad from Ayodhya.

Senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani

Source : Getty Images

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition against the acquittal of senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Uma Bharti, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and others in the Babri Masjid demolition case. The Allahabad HC had reserved its judgment on October 31 after concluding the arguments.

A bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Saroj Yadav dismissed the appeal filed in the matter by two Muslim residents of Ayodhya, Haji Mahboob Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad, against the judgment of a special CBI court in Lucknow acquitting the BJP leaders.

The two petitioners had challenged the 2020 judgment of the special CBI court that held there was nothing on record to establish the existence of a conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid.

READ | Babri Demolition: HC Reserves Order On Maintainability Of Plea Against Acquittal Of Advani, Others

The appeal claimed that they were victims as well as witnesses who suffered the loss of their historic place of worship, the Babri Masjid. They also alleged that they suffered financial loss on account of destruction of their houses due to arson, loot etc, a report in Bar and Bench said.

The state government and the CBI objected to the appeal, stressing that the two appellants were not complainants or victims in the case and as such they cannot appeal as a stranger against the verdict of the trial court.

The Babri mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992, by 'karsewaks', who were mobilised under the BJP’s Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The 'kar sevaks' had claimed that an ancient Ram temple stood at the same site.

In a landmark judgment in 2019, the Supreme Court granted the entire disputed land in Ayodhya to deity Ram Lalla and directed the Uttar Pradesh government to allot an alternative five-acre plot to Muslims to build a mosque.

After a long legal battle, the special CBI court on September 30, 2020, pronounced the judgment in the criminal trial and acquitted all the accused.

The trial judge had refused to believe newspaper cuttings and video clips as evidence as the originals of the same were not produced.

The trial judge had also held that the CBI could not produce any evidence that the accused had a meeting of mind with karsewaks who demolished the structure.