india

Updated: Jul 09, 2019 22:26 IST

The Supreme Court agreed to examine on Tuesday an application filed by an original petitioner in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute matter, who claimed the mediation proceedings as ordered by the court have made no headway.

The application, filed by Rajendra Singh, survivor of Gopal Singh Visharad, was mentioned before a bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, which said it would look into the request.

Visharad was the first to approach the court in 1950 for a declaration that he “is entitled to worship without any obstruction according to the rights and tenets of his religion at the birthplace of Lord Shri Ram Chandra.” It was his petition that triggered the civil dispute. VIsharad had sought a permanent prohibitory injunction against the removal of Lord Ram’s idols situated at the disputed side.

Senior advocate P Narasimha mentioned Visharad’s application before the CJI’s bench and claimed “not much progress” has been made in the mediation proceedings, suggested by the top court to “heal hearts and minds.” The three-member panel is led by former SC judge, Justice FMI Kalifulla; spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu are its members. Panchu is a pioneer in alternative dispute resolution mechanism. The committee has held several rounds of mediation with stakeholders in Faizabad district.

On May 10, the court granted the mediation committee time till August 15 to give its report on the efforts made to resolve the long-pending title dispute. This was done after the panel filed an interim report on before the constitution bench led by the CJI.

“Despite initial reluctance in the process of mediation, the applicant herein wholeheartedly participated in the mediation proceedings conducted by the three eminent persons appointed by the court. However, in the three meetings participated during a period of five months, neither any concrete proposal has come from anyone nor any headway is likely to be made in the process of mediation,” Visharad’s application read.

SC referred the dispute for mediation on March 8 and had fixed an eight-week deadline for the submission of a progress report.