By Muslim Mirror Staff
Lucknow/New Delhi: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Sunday finally decided to seek a review of the Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya dispute terming the top court’s assertion “contradictory and illogical”.
The top court did not reached a logical conclusion after accepting key arguments of the Muslim parties, observed the legal cell of the apex Muslim body at a press conference organised to announce the decision in Luckow amid alleged administrative pressure to withhold the event.
“The board (AIMPLB) has decided that we will file a review petition in the Supreme Court within stipulated 30 days of the verdict,” said AIMPLB Convenor Dr Qasim Rasool Iliyas, rejecting the alternate site as ordered by the top court.
“We feel that restitution by granting five acres of land, where fundamental values have been damaged to the extent of causing national shame, will not in any manner heal the wounds caused,” he said.
He further said mosques are essential for religious practices of Muslims. “Building the same mosque at some other site is not permissible as per Islamic law as a mosque cannot be shifted,” he added.
The Board also rejected to accept five acres of land given to Muslims for construction of a mosque.
It is said that the administration exerted pressure on the Muslim parties to withhold the event. The Lucknow district administration did not allow the AIMPLB to hold the meeting at its pre-decided venue, Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama – a well-known Islamic seminary, said Advocatd Zafaryab Jilani, AIMPLB member and UP Central Sunni Waqf Board lawyer.
“I condemn the Lucknow administration for not allowing the meeting to happen at the seminary. Maulana Rabey Hasani Nadwi (Chancellor of Nadwatul Ulama and also fourth president of the AIMPLB) was threatened by the district administration and asked not to allow the meeting in his campus,” he alleged. The crucial meeting of the board took place at Mumtaz Degree College in the Old City area of Lucknow.
Mohammad Umar, a third Muslim litigant, had said that he would abide by whatever decision AIMPLB takes at its meeting in Lucknow on Sunday. “There are some inconsistencies in the verdict and I feel there is a scope for correction. I will go by whatever my seniors in the AIMPLB tell me to do,” he said.
Since the AIMPLB was not a party to the title suit case, it would need the backing of at least one of the seven Muslim litigants to file a review petition.
‘Pressure’ on Muslim litigants
Jilani said a couple of Muslim litigants are under tremendous pressure due to which they are not going to the SC for a review. Notably, five of the seven litigants are ready to go for the review petition.
Jilani further alleged, “It has come to our notice that the police administration in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) is pressurising Muslims not to give statements against the SC verdict (pronounced on November 9).” This was perhaps the reason, according to him, behind Iqbal Ansari’s refusal to speak up anything on the verdict, claimed Jilani.
Ansari, one of the litigants in the title suit, did not file any review petition in the SC on the judgement. Another litigant based in Ayodhya, Haji Mehboob, too echoed similar sentiments.
The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, too, has made its stand clear that it has accepted the verdict and there was no scope or ground to challenge it.
The Supreme Court, in a unanimous verdict, gave entire 2.77-acre of disputed land, where Babri Masjid once stood, to Hindus and ordered the Centre to give 5-acre alternate land to Muslims for construction of a mosque or whatever structure they want.