Babri Masjid Case: Allahabad High Court Slated To Hear Appeal On August 1

The Allahabad High Court is slated to hear arguments on the admissibility of a plea preferred against the order of the Special CBI Court at Lucknow. Vide the said order, all the 32 persons against whom accusation of hatching a criminal conspiracy behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque on December 6, 1992 was made, were acquitted.

Initially, the plea had been filed in 2021 in the nature of a criminal revision petition. However, it will now be heard as a criminal appeal. A bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh will hear the matter on August 1, 2022. A challenge to the Judgment of the Special CBI Judge S K Yadav which held that the demolition of the mosque was not premeditated and that there was no criminal conspiracy behind it has been made. The decision under challenge had acquitted persons including important BJP leaders like L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Kalyan Singh.

The petition was preferred by residents of Ayodhya - Haji Mahmood Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad who claimed that they had witnessed the demolition of the disputed structure on December 6, 1992.

On July 18, when the matter came before the single judge, the Senior Counsel Syed Farman Ali Naqvi apprised the court that due to an inadvertent mistake, a revision petition was filed. The petitioners claimed that the revisionists ought to have preferred an appeal in view of the Amendment to Section 372 of the Cr.P.C. w.e.f. 31st December 2009.

As per the amendment to Section 372 of Cr.P.C. the victim shall have a right to prefer an appeal against any order passed by the court acquitting the accused or convicting for a lesser offence or imposing inadequate compensation.

It was further contended that under section 401(5) of the Cr.P.C., this court may exercise its powers to treat this revision as the appeal. After both, the counsels for CBI and the revisionists were heard, the revision was ordered to be treated as an appeal under section 372 Cr.P.C.

The Court also granted liberty to the counsels for the C.B.I. and State to raise their objections with regards to the admissibility of the appeal.