Worship Places Act: The Supreme Court will hear a petition challenging the validity of a provision of the worship site (Special Provisions) Act 1991 on Tuesday (April 01). Under this Act, there is a provision to maintain the nature of any religious place according to the status of 15 August 1947.
According to the suit list of Tuesday 1 April, a bench of Chief Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar will hear this petition. This Act prohibits the change in the religious form of any worship place, although the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute in Ayodhya was excluded from its purview.
What is said in the petition?
In the petition, the Supreme Court has been requested that the courts should be allowed to find out the original religious form of any place of worship. In this, Section 4 (2) of the Act has been challenged, which prohibits the action to change the religious form of a place of worship and a fresh case on it. In the petition filed by Law student Nitin Upadhyay, it has been said that the Central Government has gone beyond its legislative power and banned judicial treatment. It has also been argued in the petition that according to the Constitution, the right to file a case in a competent court and get judicial treatment cannot be stopped.
Scientific and documentary survey not stopped
It has also been said in the petition that the Act makes it mandatory to preserve the religious form of a place of worship, but there is no restriction on the change in ‘structure, construction or building’. It also mentions that there is no restriction on any scientific or documentary survey to investigate the religious form of a site.
Decision on pending petitions related to 1991 law in April
In February, the court expressed displeasure over the filing of several petitions on the Act and said that a bench of three judges would hear the pending petitions related to the law of 1991 in April. The court, in its order given in December 2024, had stayed the action of 18 cases filed by different Hindu sides. These cases demanded a survey to find out the original religious form of 10 mosques including Gyanvapi of Varanasi, royal Idgah Mosque of Mathura and Shahi Jama Masjid of Sambhal.