New Delhi: A number of prominent personalities have asked for the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya judgment to be reviewed as it has “caused widespread concern among all those who have the interests of justice and fairness at heart”.In a statement, the signatories said that the “first source of concern” is that the court has delivered a judgment “which has been made possible only by the criminal destruction of the Babri Masjid” on December 6, 1992, which the court itself described as an “unlawful act”.They said the archaeological on the site, which the judgment relied on, would not have been possible without the destruction of the majid. “Nor would it have been as easy for the Court to hand over the site to the Hindu side if the Masjid had still stood,” they said.Also Read: Five Acres in Lieu of CitizenshipThe statement also says there is “no iota of proof” for the Supreme Court’s assumption that Muslims had ceased to pray in the masjid in Mughal and Nawabi times. “Nor is there any proof that Hindus anywhere before very late times believed that Lord Rama was born precisely at the site of Babri Masjid, which should, of course, not be confused with the belief that he was born in Ayodhya,” it says.Among those who have signed the request are journalists Dhirendra K. Jha and Pamela Philipose, historian Irfan Habib, academics Jayati Ghosh and Badri Raina and Sohail Hashmi.The full statement has been reproduced in full below.§The Supreme Court’s judgement in the Ayodhya case delivered on 9 November 2019 has caused widespread concern among all those who have the interests of justice and fairness at heart.The first source of concern is that the Court’s has delivered a judgement which has been made possible only by the criminal destruction of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992, which the Court itself has described as an “unlawful act”. No speculations over archaeological excavations on the site, on which the Court has so much relied, would have been possible without the previous destruction of the Masjid. Nor would it have been as easy for the Court to hand over the site to the Hindu side if the Masjid had still stood.Moreover, the Court’s treatment of both archaeology and history seems to have been rather cavalier and one-sided. There is no iota of proof for the Court’s assumption that Muslims had ceased to pray in the Masjid in Mughal and Nawabi times. Nor is there any proof that Hindus anywhere before very late times believed that Lord Rama was born precisely at the site of Babri Masjid, which should, of course, not be confused with the belief that he was born in Ayodhya. Remarkably, the Court glosses over Tulsidas’s silence on the site of his birth.Finally, the Court’s assigning to the Government of India the task of setting up a Hindu religious trust to build the future Rama temple on the Babri Masjid site implies that in the Court’s view it is the Government’s duty to cater to Hindu religious interests. This surely is hardly in consonance with the supposed secular nature of our state.We, the undersigned, therefore, earnestly urge the Supreme Court to review its judgement.Aban RazaAchin VinaikAhmad RazaAlok JainAnand K SahayAngelie MultaniAnil BhattiAnil ChandraAntara Dev SenArchana PrasadAshok RaoAstad DabooAyesha KidwaiBadri RainaC.P.BhambriC.P.ChandrasekharChanchal ChauhanChirashree Das GuptaD.N.JhaDeepak SananDhirendra K JhaDinesh AbrolDunu RoyGargi ChakravarttyGeeta KapurGitha HariharanIndira Arjun DevIndira ChandrasekharIrfan HabibIshrat AlamJayati GhoshM. ShrimaliKausar WizaratKavita SinghKeval AroraKumar ShahaniLata SinghLima KanungoM.K.RainaMadangopal SinghMadhu PrasadMadhushree DuttaManini ChatterjeeMaya Krishna RaoMihir BhattacharyaMMP SinghMohan RaoMohd AbuzarMukul DubeN.K.SharmaNadeem RizaviNasir TyabjiNikhil KumarNina RaoPamela PhiliposeParthiv ShahPrabhat PatnaikPrabhat ShuklaPradeep SaxenaPrashant MukherjeePraveen JhaPuneet Nicholas YadavRadhika MenonRadhika SinghaRahul RoyRajendra SharmaRajinder AroraRajni B AroraRakhi SehgalRam RahmanRamesh DixitRamesh RawatRanjani MazumdarRekha AwasthiRimli BhattacharyaRoger AlexenderRohit AzadS K PandeySadiq ZafarShakti KakSharmila SamantSherna DasturShireen MoosviSidhique KappanSmita GuptaSohail HashmiSudhanva DeshpandeSudhanva DeshpandeSudhir ChandraSukumar MuralidharanSumangala DamodaranSupriya VarmaSvati JoshiUtsa PatnaikValay SinghVandana RagVanita NayakVijaya VenkatramanVikas RawalVishwamohan JhaVivan SundaramWajahat HabibullahZoya Hasan
