BJP leaders LK Advani, Union Minister Uma Bharti and Murli Manohar Joshi today filed a discharge petition against the framing of charges against them in a court in Lucknow in the case related to the 1992 razing of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
The leaders told the special CBI court they had no role in the mosque razing and should not be tried for conspiracy. Mr Advani, 89, made his second court appearance in the case in 25 years. Earlier, Mr Advani stopped at the VVIP guest house where he was greeted with flowers by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. All of them got the bail in this case as a temporary relief.
Before going for the hearing, Uma Bharti, the Water Resources Minister, told reporters: “I don’t consider myself an accused…There was no conspiracy, it was an open movement like it happened during the Emergency.”
The special court was given a month by the Supreme Court to frame conspiracy charges against Mr Advani and a dozen other leaders in the Babri demolition case, and was asked to deliver its verdict within two years.
The leaders were already facing trial for making provocative speeches from a platform near the mosque before it was pulled down by karsevaks, or right-wing volunteers, on 6 December 1992. Stating that the two trials cannot be separate, the court transferred the hate speech case from a Rae Bareli court to the special court in Lucknow for a joint trial with the main demolition case.
The conspiracy charge against Mr Advani and others was dropped by the special CBI Court in 2001, which sought to distinguish between the main demolition case and the case related to the hate speeches. The decision was endorsed by the Allahabad High Court in 2010.
Restoring the charge, the Supreme Court described the demolition of the 16th century mosque on 6 December 1992, as a “crime” which shook the “secular fabric of the Constitution”.
