New Delhi, March 26 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre on a PIL by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy against the validity of Places of Worship Act 1991, which mandated to maintain character of all shrines in the country, as it was on August 15, 1947.
Swamy, in his plea, argued that the Act of 1991 being unconstitutional is also void ab initio and against the basic structure of the Constitution. A bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and comprising Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian, sought a response from the Centre on the fresh plea. The top court also tagged the plea with a pending plea of advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.
The plea, having a student, Satya Paul Sabharwal, as co-petitioner, was argued by Swamy himself. Swamy,80, said the Act is against the basic structure of the Constitution, as it barred any person to approach the top court under Article 32 for enforcement of his or her fundamental rights including the right to religion.
"That the Act of 1991 is a barrier, depriving the Petitioner(s) the right to pray at a place where, due to foreign oppression and invasion a Hindu Temple of a certain significance according to faith and belief of Hindus was/is converted, inviting this Court to interpret in lieu of the well documented history and review in checking the constitutional validity of such Act", said the Swamy's plea.
The plea cited the instance of Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi, one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, which was first destroyed by the army of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, in 1194 CE. In 1669 CE, Emperor Aurangzeb again destroyed the temple and built the Gyanvapi Mosque in its place. Swamy claimed that the remains of the erstwhile temple can be seen at the foundation, the columns and at the rear part of the mosque.
"it is most respectfully submitted that prohibiting the Petitioners from approaching Court with respect to suit or any other proceedings to handover the land of any temple of certain significance hit by Article 25 and 26, in lieu of putting it under the term of conversion or under the concept of Limitation (barred) is wrong and therefore, the Act of 1991 should be struck down as unconstitutional and as ultra vires", added the plea.
The plea argued that the Act is barrier, which deprives the petitioner the right to pray at a place where, due to foreign oppression and invasion, a Hindu temple of a certain significance according to faith and belief of Hindus was converted.
Source: IANS
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