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Updated: Jun 15, 2020 22:13 IST

Muslims may have offered prayers at the disputed Ayodhya site but that does not give them the right to lay claim over it in the backdrop of the fact that structure, pillars, motifs and inscriptions are primarily Hindu, the Supreme Court was told on Friday by the lawyer representing the deity Ram Lalla Virajman.

“Just because prayers are being offered on a street (by Muslims) doesn’t mean a claim of ownership over it can be made,” senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan told the five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Friday.

Vaidyanathan told the judges that the structure was never in the true sense considered a mosque. “The images (inside the Babri structure) are contrary to Islamic belief - Islam does not have image in their place of worship, whether of a human being or animals,” he told the bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. The senior lawyer also placed photographs before the bench that he said, were taken in 1990.

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The top court is holding daily hearing into the contentious Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case. At the hearings over the past few days, Vaidyanathan has argued that the Babri mosque was built on the ruins of the temple and it was wrong to say that the land does not belong to anyone.

“If it is built on the ruins of a temple, it can’t be a mosque, as this is contrary to Shariat law,” he told the court this week. Vaidyanathan has argued that there were indeed two versions on the demolition of temple in Ayodhya. One that it was done by Mughal emperor Babar and the second version that holds Aurangzeb responsible for it. But the undisputed fact was that the temple was demolished and a mosque built over it.

He has also cited Faizabad’s Commissioner report of 1950 which records that there were 14 pillars at the disputed site “with illustrations of Hindu gods and symbols”. “And there cannot be a mosque which has pillar with images of Hindu gods,” he had added.