Supreme Court judge recuses from Ayodhya cases

Justice V Gopala Gowda, who was heading the bench also comprising Justice Arun Mishra, recused himself from the hearing without citing any reason and said, “let the matter be placed before the Chief Justice” for its allocation to some other bench. 

The appeals were filed by one Haji Mahboob Ahmad and the CBI against the dropping of conspiracy charges against senior BJP leaders Advani, Joshi and 16 others, for demolition of the disputed medieval structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

The pleas had sought setting aside of the Allahabad High Court’s order of May 20, 2010, which had dropped section 120B (criminal conspiracy) under the IPC while upholding a special court’s decision. 

In September last year, the CBI had told the apex court that its decision-making was not influenced by anyone and the dropping of criminal conspiracy charge against senior BJP leaders in the case was not at its instance. Earlier, the apex court had sought responses of Advani, Joshi, union minister Uma Bharti and 16 others on Ahmad’s plea. 

Besides BJP leaders Advani, Joshi and Bharti, the court had also sought response from Himachal Pradesh Governor Kalyan Singh, among others. Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and VHP leader Acharya Giriraj Kishore were among the accused, who have since died. 

The others against whom the charge was dropped included Vinay Katiyar and Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Satish Pradhan, C R Bansal, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore (now deceased), Sadhvi Ritambhara, V H Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, R V Vedanti, Paramhans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, B L Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and Moreshwar Save.