There should be a limit to intervention applications in Places of Worship Act challenge: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Monday took exception to a slew of intervention applications being filed in the case relating to the challenge to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 [Ashwini Upadhyay v. Union of India]..A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar said there should be a limit to such intervention applications. "We will not take up the Places of Worship Act matter today. It is a three- judge Bench matter. Too many petitions filed. List sometime in March. There is a limit to interventions being filed," CJI Khanna remarked.Various political parties and leaders have also filed intervention applications in the matter including the Congress Party, CPI(ML), Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) head Asaduddin Owaisi.All of them have defended the validity of the Act and have opposed the petitions which challenge the law."Last time we allowed so many interventions," the Bench said. Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave conceded that no further intervention should be allowed."Yes no further should be allowed," Dave said. The Court then directed that new intervention pleas will be allowed only if it raises fresh grounds."Application for fresh interventions will be allowed given it raised some ground which is not raised as yet," the Bench directed.The Court also said that petitions challenging the Act and in which no notice has been issued by the Court, will stand dismissed. Such petitioners can file applications in existing petitions provided such applications raise fresh grounds."Pending writ petitions which has no notice stands dismissed with liberty to file application raising additional grounds," the Court ordered.Senior Advocate Vikas Singh and advocate Nizam Pasha pointed out that the Central government is yet to file its response."Last 8 dates have passed.. no counter filed," Pasha said."Yes not filed and new petitions raise new grounds," the Court noted.The Court eventually directed that the matter be listed before a 3-judge Bench in April. .Too many petitions filed. There is a limit to interventions being filed.Supreme Court .The Places of Worship Act seeks to protect the status of all religious structures as it stood on the date of independence (August 1947) by barring courts from entertaining cases which raise dispute over the character of such places of worship.The law which was introduced during the height of Ram Janmabhoomi movement seeks to protect the status of all religious structures as it stood on the date of independence by barring courts from entertaining cases which raises dispute over the character of such places of worship.The law further provides that such cases already pending in courts would stand abated.The Act, however, carved an exception for Ram-Janmabhoomi site which was the basis for courts including High Court and Supreme Court hearing that matter.Since Ayodhya land was exempt, the Supreme Court had invoked this law in 2019 while awarding the disputed site at Ayodhya to child deity Ram Lalla.The Supreme Court had, however, reaffirmed in that judgment that similar such cases cannot be entertained with respect to other sites in view of the Act..This prompted various Hindu parties to move the Supreme Court challenging the validity of the law itself.Among those who have petitioned the apex court in the matter is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashwini Upadhyay, on whose plea the Court had issued notice in 2021. His plea states that the Act allows illegal acts of invaders who took over religious places to continue for perpetuity by barring legal remedies to aggrieved Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs.In December 2024, the top court while hearing the challenge to the Places of Worship Act, directed trial courts across the country to refrain from issuing any substantive orders or conducting surveys of existing religious structures in cases challenging their religious character, until the Supreme Court decides the validity of the Act..This was in light of the fact that various Hindu parties had filed suits before civil courts laying claim to Muslim mosques on the ground that those mosques were built over ancient temples.At least 18 suits filed over four religious structures are pending before various courts across the country.These suits include those concerning the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal, the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, the Shahi Eidgah Masjid in Mathura and the Ajmer Dargah in Rajasthan. The Muslim parties have opposed the maintainability of such suits by citing the Places of Worship Act.Note: This story was updated after a second round of hearing which took place after at 1 pm on Monday.