Making of a flash point in Sambhal

The four deaths in Sambhal, a city near Meerut, after Uttar Pradesh police clashed with protesters on Sunday during the survey of a mosque believed to have been constructed in the 16th century is the fallout of a polarising political build-up centred on religious sites and its tacit indulgence by the judiciary. In Sambhal, a local civil court ordered a survey of the mosque, which is also a protected monument under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act, 1904, after some Hindu petitioners staked claim to the site alleging that the Shahi Jama Masjid was constructed by a Mughal general following the demolition of a temple.

It is disturbing that the civil court entertained the petition and allowed administrative action considering that the masjid is covered by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. This law, legislated a year before the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was destroyed in 1992 following a nationwide mobilisation, categorically asks for maintaining the religious character of all places of worship as they were on August 15, 1947 (it made an exception for the Ayodhya site, which was under legal challenge). When this is the law of the land, the Sambhal court, or for that matter any court, has no business in issuing directives and orders on petitions that disregard the provisions of the Places of Worship Act: The Act explicitly states that “no person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination or any section thereof into a place of worship of a different section of the same religious denomination or of a different religious denomination or any section thereof”. However, lower courts and the Allahabad High Court have breached the provisions of this Act through their interventions, especially in the Gyanvapi case. All this could have been avoided if the Supreme Court, which is hearing a challenge to the Places of Worship Act, had directed the lower courts not to adjudicate on such disputes. Ironically, an observation in May 2022 by former Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud that the 1991 Act does not bar finding the nature (or character) of a religious place has emboldened litigants and the lower judiciary to ignore the intent of the law.

Simply put, the 1991 Act, introduced to prevent political outfits from polarising people by disputing the status of religious sites, now stands invalidated on the ground. Political parties, the administration, and the courts have been complicit in vitiating the social climate by enabling troublemakers to exploit communal fault lines. The violence in Sambhal is a grave reminder of a dangerous schism.

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