SC refrains from interfering with clubbing of 15 suits in Mathura temple row

The bench pointed out that multiplicity of proceedings pertaining to the same dispute was not appropriate and that the mosque management committee should first press its case before the HC

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refrained from interfering with a judicial order that clubbed fifteen suits relating to Mathura’s Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Eidgah Masjid land dispute, noting that a challenge to the consolidation of suits was already pending before the Allahabad high court.

SC gave the committee liberty to come back to the top court if it is aggrieved by the final decision of the high court. (HT Archive photo)

A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta pointed out that multiplicity of proceedings pertaining to the same dispute was not appropriate and that the mosque management committee should first press its case before the high court.

On being informed that the mosque management committee has moved a plea in the high court for recalling the January 11 order on consolidation of suits, the bench disposed of the committee’s petition. It gave the committee liberty to come back to the top court if it is aggrieved by the final decision of the high court.

On January 11, the high court ordered consolidation of 15 suits on a plea made by the Hindu side under the relevant provisions of the Civil Procedure Code. According to the Hindu plaintiffs, the majority of the lawsuits include common prayers, and some have been filed to take possession of the Shahi Idgah property and demolish it.

Accepting the plea, the high court noted that 15 of the 18 suits filed in the matter suits are of similar in nature and hence, the proceedings in these cases can be taken up and be decided simultaneously based on common evidence.

“To save the time of the Court, the expenses to be incurred to the parties, and to avoid conflicting judgments it appears expedient in the interest of justice to consolidate the suits with each other,” the high court held in its January 11 order.

Multiple suits regarding the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Eidgah Mosque land dispute have a common demand to reclaim the 13.37-acre land on which the mosque stands to be returned to the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust. The mosque abuts the temple and the suits have sought to annual a compromise entered between the mosque committee and Shri Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sangh in 1968 allowing the mosque to continue at the place where it currently stands.

Since July 2023, the Supreme Court is seized of the challenge to a May 26 order of the Allahabad high court that transferred to itself all suits filed by Hindu parties claiming right over the mosque land. The mosque committee has argued that it did not have the financial wherewithal to defend the suits in the Allahabad high court which is 600km away and would prefer having it in Delhi which only 150km away.

The May 26 order by the high court came on a plea by Bhagwan Shrikrishna Virajman at Katra Keshav Dev Khewat Mathura (deity) through the next friend, Ranjana Agnihotri, who is also an advocate, and seven others. Next friend is a legal representative of someone incapable of maintaining a suit directly. The Hindu plaintiffs requested that the original trial be conducted by the high court as the matter involved is of national importance.

Since the Supreme Court has not stayed the proceedings before the high court, on December 14, the Allahabad high court ordered a survey of the mosque that Hindu plaintiffs say holds signs proving that it was a once a Hindu temple, opening a new chapter in the decades-old dispute that is part of a raft of cases where Hindu petitioners are pushing for legal change to gain rights over Islamic holy sites.

But on January 16, the top court put in abeyance the survey of the mosque by an advocate-commissioner, observing that the plea made by the Hindu side for the survey was “very vague” and that some important legal issues also arise in the matter. Extending the order of stay on January 29, the bench is expected to take up the matter next in the first week of April when the other batch of petitions, challenging the high court order deciding to hear 18 suits by transferring them to itself from various civil courts in Mathura, will also be heard.