Ayodhya land dispute case: Supreme Court directs mediation panel to submit detailed status report by July 18

The Supreme Court of India on Thursday ordered the mediation panel to submit a detailed status report on the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid title dispute case by July 18. 

The Supreme Court bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi took the plaintiff’s plea into consideration. 

The plaintiff had sought an early hearing of the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid title dispute case. 

Senior lawyer SK Parasaran, arguing for one of the applicants, told the top court that mediation talks were not making much progress and were unable to bring any positive results. However, senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, representing Muslim parties, said that this was not the time to criticise the mediation panel. 

He said, “I don’t think it’s fair to criticise mediation panel’s proceedings. Parties cannot come to court asking to scrap the mediation talks on our account”.

However, the top court assured that if mediation talks failed to reach an amicable solution to resolve the Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid title dispute, the court will then commence hearing the case on a day-to-day basis from July 25. 

In order to resolve the title dispute case, the top Court had appointed a mediation panel headed by former Supreme Court judge FM Khalifullah along with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and senior advocate Sri Ram Panchu. 

While forming the panel, the court had asked the mediation panel to maintain utmost confidentiality and disallowed media from reporting the panel proceedings.