It's a unanimous and historic decision in favour of the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya by the five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court. The bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi ruled on Saturday (November 9, 2019) that the title suit by Ram Lalla Virajman is maintainable while ordering the Centre to set-up a Board of Trustees in the next three months for the construction of a Ram Temple.
Rejecting the petition by the Muslim side, the apex court ruled that they be given 5 acres of land at an alternate site in Ayodhya in the politically and socially-sensitive and several decades-old Ayodhya's Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case.
Ahead of the crucial verdict, political leaders cutting across the party lines have appealed for peace and calm. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also called for calm and said that the top court judgment “will not be anyone’s loss or victory”.
The case was heard by a five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan, and S Abdul Nazeer for a marathon 40 days on a day-to-day basis and reserved its order on October 16.
Hearing in the case commenced on August 6 after the court-appointed mediation panel, comprising of spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Justice (retired) FMI Kalifullah and senior advocate and renowned mediator Sriram Panchu failed to arrive at an out-of-court settlement in the case. The 40-day long proceedings turned out to be the second-longest hearing in the history of the Supreme Court, after the historic Kesavananda Bharati case which went on for 68 days.
On Friday, Justice Gogoi held an hour-long meeting with UP Chief Secretary Rajendra Kumar Tiwari and Director General of Police Om Prakash Singh who apprised him about the security arrangements made to maintain law and order in the state.
Meanwhile, multi-layered security arrangements have been put in place in Ayodhya, which has been turned into a fortress with the deployment of 60 companies (90-125 personnel each) of the PAC and paramilitary forces. Drones and CCTV cameras will also be used to monitor the situation ahead of the verdict.
Section 144, which prohibits a gathering of more than four people, has been imposed across several states, including Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, ahead of the SC verdict. Further, all schools and colleges and other educational institutions will remain closed in states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Delhi etc as a precautionary measure ahead of the Supreme Court verdict in the case. The Uttar Pradesh government has also declared holidays for all schools and colleges in the state starting from November 9 to 11 amid safety concerns.
You can watch the live streaming of the much-anticipated verdict in Ayodhya land dispute case here.