• By Mayukh Debnath
  • Mon, 01 Jan 2024 08:53 PM (IST)
  • Source:JND

Ayodhya Verdict: All members of the five-judge Supreme Court bench that delivered the 2019 verdict on the Ayodhya dispute case had unanimously decided that no authorship would be ascribed to the judgment, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud revealed in a recent interview with news agency PTI. The decision was reached as the judges agreed that the ruling, which favoured the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, would be a "judgement of the court", CJI Chandrachud added. 

"When the five-judge bench sat to deliberate on the judgement as we all do before a Judgement is pronounced, we all decided unanimously that this will be a judgement of the court. And, therefore, there was no authorship ascribed to any individual judge," the CJI stated while responding to a question on why the name of the author judge was not made disclosed to the public.

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"The case has a long history of conflict, of diverse viewpoints based on the history of the nation and all those who were part of the bench decided that this will be a judgement of the court. The court will speak through one voice and the idea of doing so was to send a clear message that all of us stood together not only in the ultimate outcome but in the reasons indicated in the judgement," he further said. 

The apex court bench that delivered the historic Ayodhya dispute verdict on November 9, 2019, was headed by the then-CJI, Ranjan Gogoi. The current CJI was also part of the five-judge bench. The verdict delivered by the bench spanned 1045 pages and brought an end to a decades-old legal issue, which also had a huge influence on the country's political landscape over the years.

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In its verdict, the SC had directed the central government to form a trust to monitor the construction of a temple at the contested site and had also directed that a five-acre plot be allotted to Sunni Waqf Board for construction of a mosque. The top court had held that the Hindu belief that Lord Ram was born at the site was undisputed and that he was the symbolic owner of the land.

(With inputs from agencies)