Babri Masjid demolition case will be decided on September 30, Advani, Joshi, and Uma Bharti are accused

The CBI special court will deliver its final verdict on September 30 in the decades-old Babri Masjid demolition case. CBI court judge Surendra Kumar Yadav on Wednesday fixed September 30 as the date for giving the final verdict in the case. There are a total of 32 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case. These include senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh, and Uma Bharti among others. Earlier this month, a CBI court had recorded the statements of all the 32 accused and completed all the proceedings in the case.

Counsel KK Mishra said that the CBI court has fixed September 30 as the date for giving the final verdict in the Babri Masjid demolition case. Mishra is advocating 25 of the 32 accused in the case, including senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti among others.

Last month, the Supreme Court extended the deadline of September 30 to a special CBI court hearing the Babri Masjid demolition case in Lucknow. The deadline of the apex court to pronounce the verdict in the Ayodhya case expired on 31 August. The Supreme Court on 19 July 2019 had extended the deadline of six months to complete the criminal trial in the Ayodhya case. At the same time, a deadline of nine months was also set for the final order. The deadline expired on 19 April this year and the Special Judge wrote a letter to the apex court on 6 May seeking an extension of time.

On 8 May, the Supreme Court issued a new deadline till 31 August and by then directed to pronounce the verdict. However, in August, the apex court once again extended the deadline to give a final verdict by 30 September. On 19 April 2017, the Supreme Court, hearing daily from the Special Judge, ordered to settle the case in two years.

The Supreme Court called the Babri demolition a crime

The Supreme Court called the demolition of the disputed structure a crime. According to the court, the incident shook the secular fabric of the Constitution. The Supreme Court had accepted the CBI's plea to reinstate the charge of criminal conspiracy against the VIP accused. At the same time, Adatal had declared the February 12, 2001 judgment of the Allahabad High Court to have dropped the charge of conspiring against Advani and others.

Before the 2017 judgment of the Supreme Court, the hearing of cases related to Babri demolition was going on in Lucknow and Rae Bareli. The first case allegedly related to the names of kar sevaks was being heard in the court of Lucknow and eight VIPs in Rae Bareli. In April 2017, the Supreme Court transferred the case going on in Rae Bareli to a special CBI court.

They are accused

In this case, LK Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Sudhir Kakkar, Satish Pradhan, Ram Chandra Khatri, Santosh Dubey, Om Prakash Pandey, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Ram Vilas Vedanti, Vinay Katiyar, Prakash Sharana, Gandhi Yadav, Jai Bhan Singh, Lallu Singh, Kamlesh Tripathi, Brij Bhushan Singh, Ramji Gupta, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Champat Rai, Sakshi Maharaj, Vinay Kumar Rai, Naveen Bhai Shukla, Dharmadas, Jai Bhagwan Goyal, Amarnath Goyal, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Pawan Pandey, Vijay Bahadur Singh, RM Srivastava and Dharmendra Singh Gurjar are the accused.