1. Petitioner has Congress links; apex court to hear matter on Sept 28

1. Petitioner has Congress links; apex court to hear matter on Sept 28
SC defers Ayodhya verdict

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/98902/sc-defers-ayodhya-verdict.html

A day before the crucial judgment by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on the Ram Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid title suit was to be delivered, the Supreme Court intervened on Thursday to defer pronouncement of the ruling in ''public interest.''


At a time when the country was awaiting the Lucknow Bench’s verdict with bated breath, the Supreme Court stepped in to grant time to the 27 litigants till September 28 to try reconciliation and negotiation for a final settlement of the 60-year-old dispute centred on whether the site should be given to Hindus or returned to the Muslims.
The apex court stayed the verdict while hearing a special leave petition filed by Ramesh Chandra Tripathi who is believed to have some links with the Congress. A retired bureaucrat, Tripathi had filed the petition challenging the order of the Allahabad High Court that had earlier dismissed his plea to defer the prounoun-cement of the order.

A three-judge Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court, comprising Justices S U Khan, Sudhir Agarwal and D V Sharma, was scheduled to pronounce the judgment on Friday at 3.30 pm on the title suit related to 2.77 acres of land at Ayodhya.
Following one hour of arguments by the advocates appearing for four parties, a Bench of Justices R V Raveendran and H L Gokhale stayed the Lucknow Bench’s yet-to-be-delivered verdict till September 28 when it would hear the matter again.

The Bench asked the parties to file their response by the next date of hearing keeping in mind that one of the judges of the three-Judge Bench of the Allahabad High Court —Justice Dharam Veer Sharma—was retiring on October 1.

The Bench also sought the assistance of Attorney General Ghulam E Vahanvati to assist it in the case. Justice Raveendran was in favour of dismissing Tripathi’s petition, but Justice Gokhale said that a last chance be given to the parties to reconcile and negotiate the dispute in public interest. “One of the members on the Bench was in favour of notice to the parties. One member was not in favour of it. Keeping the tradition of this court, notice is issued to the parties,’’ the order, pronounced in a packed courtroom, said.
“If anything goes wrong, (the) consequences will be for the ordinary people. You are aware of the history. You will blame us if anything adverse happens,’’ said Justice Gokhale.
Tripathi’s petition was contested by senior advocate Anoop G Chaudhary, who appeared for the Sunni Central Waqf Board of Uttar Pradesh, and by Ravi Shankar Prasad for Dharmadas Paramahans.

They submitted that enough opportunities had been granted to the parties for a mediated settlement of the dispute and that there should be no further delay in the pronouncement of the Lucknow Bench’s judgment.
But Justice Gokhale reasoned by saying that ‘’The High Court has failed. It is referred to the Supreme Court. The court cannot run away from its responsibility. When it is an appeal, it is different.’’
Appearing for Tripathi, senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi argued for deferring the verdict, saying that “it is a religious issue and two religious communities are involved”. Reminding the Court that “everybody knows what happened in the aftermath of the (December 6), 1992 incident”, Rohtagi feared that the High Court’s verdict on September 24 “will lead to serious problems”. He added that the “country is facing a large number of problems such as floods, Kashmir and the Commonwealth Games”.

But Justice Raveendran asked: “Why do you think the people of this country are so immature? Everybody thinks people are immature. Do you think they are not mature enough to accept the judgement of the (High) Court?”
When Rohtagi referred to the religious passions that were ignited following the demolition of the Babri mosque and the consequent riots, Justice Raveendran said: “Religious passion will be raised if people try to raise them”.
Tripathi’s counsel Sunil Jain said that “the pronoucement of the judgement may lead to communal riots in Uttar Pradesh as well as other parts of India. It is evident that the entire Kashmir valley is in turmoil and is witnessing deaths every day”.
Tripathi’s petition pointed out that “it is important to note the upcoming Commonwealth Games” whose venues are in the national capital region (NCR), including UP, and the forthcoming Assembly elections in “the most communally sensitive state, Bihar”.

School, college holidays revoked
The State government has cancelled the two-day holiday declared for schools and colleges on September 24 and September 25 in the wake of the Supreme Court deferring by a week the pronouncement of the Ayodhya verdict by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court.
“Schools and colleges will function as usual. The holiday notification has been withdrawn. We will take an appropriate decision on security measures when the Supreme Court announces the next date of the verdict,” Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa told reporters in Bangalore on Thursday. Several institutions like St Joseph’s Indian High School, Bangalore, will take a call depending on the students’ attendance on Friday.
“There is a lot of confusion among the students as well as the teachers. It is difficult to inform the students in the last minute. If they turn up tomorrow, we will conduct classes,” said Gilbert Saldanha, the principal of the school.

2. Petitioner is nephew of former Congress CM in Uttar Pradesh
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/petitioner-is-nephew-of-former-congress-cm-in-uttar-pradesh/686373/

Ramesh Chandra Tripathi, who has approached the Supreme Court with a petition to defer the Allahabad High Court verdict on the Ayodhya title suits, is the maternal nephew of the late Congress leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Sripati Mishra. Tripathi is also Defendant No. 17 in the title suit filed by the Sunni Central Board of Waqfs.
The main relief claimed in the suit is for declaration of the disputed site as the Babri Masjid and the adjoining land as a public graveyard. Possession of both has been sought in the suit.
Last week, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court rejected Tripathi’s plea to defer the verdict. He had cited apprehension of breach of peace and wanted the issue resolved through mediation. But Justice Dharam Veer Sharma, one of the three judges on the bench, disagreed with the decision to impose Rs 50,000 as cost on Tripathi.

3. Defendant No. 17 with ‘a cousin who ruled UP’
TAPAS CHAKRABORTY http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100924/jsp/nation/story_12976051.jsp




Ramesh Chandra Tripathi
Lucknow, Sept. 23: Ramesh Chandra Tripathi who?
That was Lucknow’s reaction nine days ago. Today, the elusive 73-year-old who has written several books on religion was an unlikely object of extreme emotions.
The city either praised him or reviled him for the way he had got the Ayodhya verdict stayed just a day before it was to be passed. Those disappointed at the apex court decision whispered conspiracy theories: apparently, the man was a Congress pawn.
“Secrets” tumbled out. Sources in Faizabad, Tripathi’s native place, said he was a cousin of late party leader Sripati Mishra, who had been Uttar Pradesh chief minister from 1982 to 1984. Apparently, Tripathi’s father and Mishra’s mother were siblings.
No one had seemed to know anything about his past, though, when he emerged from the shadows on September 14, petitioning the high court to defer its verdict. Some of the lawyers in the court had found him “mentally not balanced”; others said he need not be taken seriously.
Yet, Tripathi had been defendant No. 17 in the title suit for nearly four decades. But, as the lawyers said, there were dozens of petitioners in the case. Tripathi had never appeared in court and his counsel never expressed any views, his opponents alleged in the apex court today, trying to get the “non-serious” petitioner’s appeal dismissed. Even on the Internet, a search for “Ramesh Chandra Tripathi” led to another R.C. Tripathi, a retired IAS officer.Tripathi is a retired defence expenditure accountant. He lives alternately in Lucknow’s Gomtinagar with his daughter or in Ambedkarnagar district with the rest of his family,” his lawyer in Lucknow, Prasant Chandra, said.
Tripathi had retired in 1997. “On September 12, he came to me,” Chandra said. “He was not well off, so I didn’t charge any money. Nor did his lawyer in the Supreme Court.”
Congress leader Akhilesh Pratap Singh denied the party had in any way influenced Tripathi. His sons, college teacher Shyamdhan and government employee Bibhakar, said Tripathi had never cultivated political links. “He is not a politician,” Bibhakar said.
“I don’t know about his political links; I don’t think he did this because of his family connections with the Congress,” Chandra said. “But what he has done is for the general good; it doesn’t matter if the Congress had anything to do with this.”Tripathi’s Ambedkarnagar neighbours said he never flaunted his political connections but added that during his frequent visits to Lucknow in recent times, he may have rebuilt his Congress ties.“He is a very humble and deeply religious man, keeps a low profile and is not always very social,” a neighbour said. Tripathi has written several books in Hindi on spiritualism, some of which are titled Vaishnodevi, Vindhyachal and Hanumandev. He had first taken an interest in the Ayodhya dispute in 1971 when he was posted in Jammu and Kashmir. He had then filed a petition before the Faizabad court saying the site’s gates should be opened for worshippers. “But as judgment day approached, he was scared and wanted to stop the verdict,” a relative said.