New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday deferred the hearing of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land title dispute matter to January 29 after Justice UU Lalit recused himself saying that he was a lawyer in a related case.
1. No sooner than the bench assembled, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for a Muslim party, told a bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi that Justice Lalit appeared for former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh in 1994.
2. Though Dhavan said he was not seeking recusal of Justice Lalit, the judge himself opted out the hearing the matter.
3. Lalit was a part of a five-judge Constitution Bench, which included Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice SA Bobde, Justice NV Ramana and Justice DY Chandrachud.
4. Following the outcome of Thursday hearing, Gogoi said that the bench would be reconstituted in order to fill the vacant sit of Justice Lalit.
5. However, there were other controversies that marred the hearing. Some of the advocates alleged that translation of some case-related documents were not done properly. These documents were in Persian, Sanskrit and Arabic.
6. Following this allegation, the apex court directed its registry to physically inspect the documents.
7. The Supreme Court also inquired how much time it would take for them to get ready for presenting in the court. The registry was asked to submit a report on the matter on January 29.
With inputs from PTI