Ayodhya case: Other Muslim parties reject waqf board proposal for settlement

A view of Ayodhya city as seen from the roof of the Hanumangarhi temple on October 17.

Muslim litigants in the Ayodhya dispute have categorically rejected the conditional proposal for a settlement made by the co-litigant the Sunni Central Waqf Board’s. In a statement issued today, counsels Ejaz Maqbool, Shakil Ahmed Syed, M.R. Shamshad, Irshad Ahmad and Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, who represent individual Muslim litigants in the title suit, said: “We are taken aback by the media reports attributed to Mr Shahid Rizvi, Advocate on record, that U.P. Sunni Central Waqf Board was willing to withdraw the claim on site of the Babri Masjid.”

They said media agencies and newspapers reported that the Sunni Central Waqf Board had agreed to abandon their claim subject to certain conditions. “This news was obviously leaked out either by the mediation committee or Nirvani Akhara, which claim the right on the mosque, or others.”

The statement said it was difficult to accept that any mediation could be done under the circumstances, especially when the main Hindu parties stated that they were not open to any settlement and all the other Muslim appellants had made it clear as well.

The statement reads,

“We the undersigned wish to publicly state on record that:

“a) The recent attempts before Mediation Committee were not representative.

“b) That the leak to the press may have been inspired by either Mediation Committee directly or those who participated in the said mediation proceedings or participants. It needs emphasis that such a leak was in total violation of the orders of the Supreme court that had directed that such proceedings should remain confidential.

“c) The timing of the leak to the press and its confirmation by Mr. Rizvi (counsel for the Waqf Board) on 17th October 2019 on the very date when the hearing closed seems to have been well thought out. Mr. Panchu (member of the mediation panel) was also in the premises of the Supreme Court on 16th of October and was communicating in the premises to Mr. Zafar Faruqui (Waqf Board Chairman).

“Accordingly, we must make it absolutely clear that we the appellants before the Supreme Court do not accept the proposal made which has been leaked out to the press, nor the procedure by which the mediation has taken place, nor the manner in which a withdrawal of the claim has been suggested as a ‘win win situation’.”

These counsels made it clear that they doubted the credibility of the entire process of reaching the settlement, and said that hence the court should not take cognisance of it.