A criminal revision petition was filed with the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Friday, challenging the special CBI court’s September 30, 2020 order in the Babri Masjid demolition case, which acquitted all the 32 accused, including senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Kalyan Singh.
Haji Mehboob and Haji Saiyyad Akhlaq Ahmad, both natives of Ayodhya, filed the revision petition on behalf of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). Both were litigants in the Babri mosque demolition case.
“We decided to challenge the special court’s judgment after the CBI did not move the high court against the acquittal,” Mehboob said.
Mehboob and Ahmad have presented themselves as witnesses in the case and also as aggrieved persons in the riots that followed the Babri mosque demolition on December 6, 1992.
The case is likely to come up for hearing next week.
The special CBI court had acquitted all 32 persons accused of conspiring to demolish the 16th century Babri mosque on December 6, 1992 that sparked a deadly cycle of riots and communal violence across India, leaving hundreds dead.
The verdict by judge Surendra Kumar Yadav ended a 28-year-long legal fight, and brought relief to senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti, but raised serious questions about the investigation into the high-profile case.
{{/usCountry}}The verdict by judge Surendra Kumar Yadav ended a 28-year-long legal fight, and brought relief to senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti, but raised serious questions about the investigation into the high-profile case.
{{/usCountry}}The 2300-page judgment ruled out any criminal conspiracy behind the razing of the disputed structure and found it to be a “spontaneous act”.
“The incident was not pre-planned,” the judge had said in the verdict, and added that “the leaders present there actually tried to control and pacify the mob... anti-social elements brought the structure down.”
The judgment largely focused on the lack of credible evidence provided by the CBI, the probe agency.
Yadav said in his judgment that the CBI could not produce any conclusive evidence against any accused and refused to accept newspaper reports, documents and video cassettes as evidence.