SC order ends the political chapter, but starts a legal one for Babri

The Supreme Court order reviving the criminal conspiracy charge against senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition incident paves the way for the arguments on framing of the conspiracy charge to begin and reaffirms the dictum that the rule of law will prevail, howsoever mighty be those involved. The CBI had charge sheeted 21 leaders and karsevaks with conspiring to raze the mosque but a trial court had quashed the conspiracy charge against 13 others including Advani while allowing the trial against them for other offences like Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (promoting enmity between classes) to proceed. This led to two separate proceedings in Rae Bareli, involving the 13 accused leaders who were discharged from the conspiracy charge, while in Lucknow, eight karsevaks were tried for the conspiracy charge. Significantly, the CBI under the present NDA government vociferously argued for reinstating the charges against Advani and the accused leaders and sought the merging of the separate proceedings in Rae Bareli and Lucknow.

The Supreme Court order on Thursday, while a milestone in the 25-year-long legal struggle to bring the guilty in the demolition case to book, has a key political implication. Advani was considered as a possible contender for the BJP ticket in the upcoming presidential elections. Of late, Advani was beginning to gain acceptability among some Opposition parties and as a counterweight to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Now, Advani’s hopes of emerging as a consensus candidate have been dashed for good. The political relevance of Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, and Vinay Katiyar had diminished ever since the Modi wave and the BJP’s massive win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. PM Modi also put some of these leaders promptly in their place through the Margdarshak Mandal which has been described, rather derisively, as a retirement destination for ageing BJP leaders.

Thursday’s Supreme Court order rectifies a grave mistake committed in the conduct of the case. The method of “artificially dividing” the accused persons into instigators (Advani and the 12 other leaders) and those who actually demolished the mosque (the karsevaks, eight of whom are standing trial) came in for flak. The judgment points out that when the FIR lodged immediately after the demolition and the first consolidated charge sheet filed by the CBI clearly stated that all the accused persons were involved in the criminal conspiracy to demolish the mosque, there was no rationale for the two separate court proceedings at Rae Bareli and Lucknow. It is indisputable that many of these leaders were present at the disputed structure and many of them had made inflammatory speeches from the dais exhorting the karsevaks to violence.

The Supreme Court, the CBI, and the central government must be credited for belatedly attempting to rectify the mistakes that vitiated the proceedings in the Babri demolition case. The Supreme Court has ordered day-to-day proceedings without adjournments and specifically stated that the trial court judge should not be transferred during the pendency of the trial, as had happened on earlier occasions. The interest of the accused have also been safeguarded by giving them the liberty to recall all witnesses who were already examined. The ball is in the court of the UP government and the CBI. Both must ensure closure, at least legally, for a case that meandered for far too long.