The Supreme Court rejected all (19) petitions seeking a review of its landmark verdict on the Ayodhya land dispute case on Thursday. A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde had a look at the petitions within their chambers, instead of an open court.
The petitioners included both, from the Hindu side as well as the Muslim side.
Some 40 civil rights activists had filed review petitions, but many of them weren’t even part of the original case.
Following the dismissal of the review pleas, petitioners have the final legal resort available to them of filing a curative petition.
On November 9 a five-member bench, headed by then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, delivered a unanimous verdict that gave all 2.77 acres of disputed Ayodhya land to Ram Lalla (the infant Lord Ram).
The top court also directed the central government to provide the Sunni Waqf Board five acres of land, in a “suitable, prominent place in Ayodhya”, to build a mosque.
In a 1,045-page order, the court admitted Muslims had been wrongly deprived of the mosque. Nevertheless, the court said: “…on a balance of probabilities, the evidence in respect of the possessory claim of the Hindus to the composite whole of the disputed property stands on a better footing than the evidence adduced by the Muslims.”